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1
Germany, the Atlantic Slave Trade, and the New World Plantation
Economies, 15th to 18th Centuries1
Klaus WEBER
(The Rothschild Archive, the United Kingdom;
Institut für Geschichte der deutschen Juden, Germany)
1. Introduction
When seeking the protagonists of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and of the New World
plantation economies, which relied heavily on unfree labour, Germany does not easily come
into our minds. Before the belated creation of a nation state, in 1871, Germany had always
been a country with an insignificant merchant marine, and without colonies. The only more
widely known attempt to engage directly in the slave trade was the short-lived
Brandenburgisch-Africanische Compagnie, which was established by Prussia in 1680 and
maintained its own fortress on the West African coast. Its ships sailed under the flag of
Brandenburg, until it was wound up in 1711.2 Scholarly studies on the Atlantic World are
dominated by English-speaking authors, and from their point of view, Germany was a
land-locked, economically backward country. As Charles P. Kindleberger put it: “Apart from
those in its cities of Hamburg, Lübeck and Cologne, the Germany of the Holy Roman Empire
lacked effective merchants for the marketing of Renish cloth, Silesian linens, and East
Prussian grain and timber.”3 He believes that only from the early 19th century did German
1 This text draws heavily on: Klaus Weber: Deutschland, der atlantische Sklavenhandel und die
Plantagenwirtschaft der Neuen Welt (15. bis 19. Jahrhundert), in: Journal of Modern European History
(special issue “Europe, Slave Trade, and Colonial Forced Labour”) 7 (2009) 1, pp. 37-67. 2 Jürgen Nagel: Die Brandenburgisch-Afrikanische Compagnie. Ein Handelsunternehmen, in: Scripta
Mercaturae 30 (1996) Heft 1, pp. 44-94. Hermann Kellenbenz: Die Brandenburger auf St. Thomas, in:
Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas 2 (1965), pp. 196-217. 3 Charles P. Kindleberger: World Economic Primacy: 1500-1990. Oxford - New York (1996), p. 22
2
merchants established in London – notably Rothschild, Schroder and Baring – achieve a
deeper integration of Germany into world economy. The eminent German historian
Hans-Ulrich Wehler agreed that all German territories were excluded from the European
colonial and commercial expansion.4 Even Jürgen Osterhammel, who acknowledges that the
slave trade was the essential motor of trans-Atlantic economy, insists that only a very small
number of Germans participated in this trade, and when doing so, they never used German
ports for the turnover of the commodities involved.5
More recent studies have challenged the assumption that early modern Germany was not
an integral part of the western hemisphere. Margrit Schulte Beerbühl, for example, traced
more than 500 German merchants who were established in London during the period
1680-1820. They maintained close commercial links between England, its colonies, and
Germany, including both the Hanseatic cities Bremen and Hamburg, and regions in the deep
hinterland of Central Europe. Yet, even among this large group, the author identified just one
individual who was directly involved in the slave trade as a ship owner around 1700 (a certain
Peter Paggen from a rural town near Bremen).6 But when including not only entrepreneurs
who were immediately involved as owners of slave ships, but also those Germans who had
invested capital in the large joint stock slaving companies, a larger group emerges. It also
includes prominent merchant bankers, such as the Barings, who had arrived in London from
Bremen during the first half of the 18th century and soon became members of the Company of
Merchants Trading with Africa, and investors from Germany‟s financial markets Frankfurt
4 Hans-Ulrich Wehler: Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, vol. 1: 1700-1815, München (1987), p. 53.
5 Jürgen Osterhammel: Sklaverei und die Zivilisation des Westens, München (2000), p. 11.
6 Margrit Schulte Beerbühl: Deutsche Kaufleute in London. Welthandel und Einbürgerung (1660-1818),
München (2007), p. 112.
3
and Augsburg.7 Eric Saugera‟s meticulous study on the slave trade in Bordeaux has shown
that there was a significant direct involvement of Germans, running their ships under the
French flag. Bordeaux was the second French slaving port, after Nantes. Out of 411 slavers
leaving from Bordeaux between 1700 and 1793, 27 were owned by Germans and
Swiss-Germans established in Bordeaux.8
This paper will further include indirect involvement with the slave trade, such as
production and provision of barter commodities for the African coasts, and processing and
distribution of colonial goods produced by slaves on the plantations of the New World. The
production of sugar had driven European expansion into the Atlantic, and sugar will also serve
as an excellent example to demonstrate Central European interests in this process. Only in also
acknowledging these indirect links, will the macroeconomic conditions of German
participation, and its scope, become evident.
The paper will first recount the earliest entanglements of German entrepreneurs with the
Atlantic economy, and then demonstrate the continuity of interests far into the 18th century.
The second chapter will offer a few case studies to illustrate the particular profile of the
merchants involved. Finally, the paper will offer some quantitative data in order to illustrate
the impact these trading links had for the economy of Central European hinterlands.
2. From the early beginnings to the phase of the Thirty Years War
7 Anne T. Gary: The Political and Economic Relations of English and American Quakers (1750-1785),
Oxford (PhD thesis) (1935), p. 506. 8 Eric Saugera: Bordeaux port négrier. Chronologie, économie, idéologie, XVII
e-XIX
e siècles, Biarritz -
Paris (1995), pp. 351-362.
4
Earliest German interests in the sugar economy probably date back to the Crusades, when
contact with Islamic culture was intensifying. Europeans learned for the very first time the
techniques of sugar cane cultivation, and the extraction and refining of sugar. During the 13th
and 14th centuries, the Orders of Christian Knights, namely the Templars, created sugar
plantations on the Mediterranean islands of Rhodes and Cyprus, which were worked with
enslaved prisoners of war. The capital for these investments came from Venice and Genoa,
and to a minor extent from Southern Germany.9 From the Levant (the Eastern Mediterranean),
the sugar economy expanded via Sicily to the southern coasts of Spain and Portugal. From the
1420s the Ravensburger Kompanie acquired sugar cane fields near Valencia (Spain), and
erected a sugar mill. The Kompanie had been created in the South West of Germany around
1380, for the export of linen textiles to Southern Europe. Yet, during the very decade in which
this trading company also embarked on the sugar business, the Spaniards and Portuguese
began their expansion into the Atlantic. Their first step was the Spanish conquest of the
Canary Islands and the Portuguese colonisation of Madeira. The sub-tropical climate of these
islands allowed for a significant increase of the plantations‟ productivity, which caused a
decline of the sugar prices at the Antwerp stock exchange from 30 grams of silver per
kilogram of sugar in 1430 to only five grams in 1500. This was the main reason why the
Ravensburger Kompanie sold its Valencian estate, in 1477, in spite of the excellent quality of
their product.10
At the same time, sugar – hitherto only enjoyed by princes, popes and a small
elite of merchants and noblemen – became affordable to an ever expanding group of
consumers.
9 Barbara L. Solow: Capitalism and Slavery in the Exceedingly Long Run, in: Barbara L. Solow / Stanley L.
Engerman (eds.): British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery: The Legacy of Eric Williams, Cambridge
(Cambridge Univ. Press) (1987), pp. 51-77, see pp. 53-55. 10
William D. Phillips jr.: Sugar in Iberia, in: Stuart B. Schwartz (ed.): Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the
making of the Atlantic World, 1450-1680, Chapel Hill - London (2004), pp. 27-41, see pp. 33-34.
5
If the Ravensburger had suffered from this expansion of the sugar economy, other
German merchants were among the protagonists of the first genuine mass production of sugar.
In 1508, the Welser family acquired one of the largest estates on the island of Tenerife.
Investments in land and sugar mills on neighbouring La Palma followed. Agents of this major
German industrial and financial trust were also present on Madeira and at the Lisbon stock
exchange, which had become a key hub of the sugar trade.11
The Canary Islands, Madeira and
São Tomé (an island off the coast of tropical West Africa, colonised by the Portuguese) were
in fact the great laboratory in which Europeans developed all the agricultural, logistical and
financial techniques which became fundamental for establishing the plantation economies of
the New World:
- employment of unfree labour (indentured European, local slave and imported African slave
labour);
- agro-industrial techniques of crop-raising;
- organisation of long-term credits for this capital-intensive business;
- efficient marketing of the product in Europe.
When the Spaniards established sugar plantations on their first Caribbean colony Santo
Domingo, the Welsers were once more in the business. From c.1530 until 1556 they held
shares of major estates and, more importantly, acquired an Asiento for the importation of
African slaves, in 1528. It was one of the first of these monopoly contracts which the Crown
sold to private businessmen, in order to secure a smooth supply of labour to the New World,
where European diseases were causing a heavy death toll among the indigenous population.
The 1528 Asiento was issued at the price of 20,000 ducats, for delivering 4,000 slaves.
11
Alberto Vieira: Sugar Islands. The Sugar Economy of Madeira and the Canaries, 1450-1650, in: Schwartz
(ed.), Tropical Babylons, pp. 42-84, see pp. 47, 67, 69.
6
Portuguese slave traders, experienced in this sector for decades, were sub-contracted for the
actual transportation. The contract was duly fulfilled by 1538.12
Even during this early phase, German merchants not only benefited from the Asiento and
from running plantations, but also from producing barter commodities for the purchase of
slaves on the African coast. Most prominent among the early providers of such goods was the
Fugger family. Like the Welser dynasty, the Fuggers were from the Southern German
financial and industrial city of Augsburg, and both are considered the major protagonists of
early capitalism north of the Alps. The Fuggers, at that time even more powerful than the
Welsers, were engaged in Central European textile production, in Alpine and Hungarian
copper mining and processing, in the Venetian spice trade, and they had leased large estates
from the Spanish Knight Orders. As bankers of the Vatican and of the Emperors of the Holy
Roman Empire, they exercised huge political power in Europe. Only recently, in April 2008,
was the wreck of a ship discovered which grounded on the coast of Namibia around the year
1530. Among its cargo were 17 tons of copper, with the Trident – the Fuggers‟ trade mark –
engraved on the metal sheets.13
This trade to Africa had continuity: in a contract sealed with
the Portuguese Crown in 1548, the Fuggers secured themselves the delivery “of 7,500
hundredweight of brass bracelets, 24,000 saucepans, 1,800 bowls, 4,500 barbers‟ basins, and
10,400 large kettles within the period of four years. All this brassware was […] explicitly […]
destined for the trade with the Guinea Coast.”14
From the 1530s the Portuguese colony of Brazil was being developed as a sugar colony,
and due to an abundance of arable land, water and timber (which was needed as fuel in the
12
Jörg Denzer: Die Konquista der Augsburger Welser-Gesellschaft in Südamerika (1528-1556), München
2005, pp. 51-55. 13
I owe the reference to this ship wreck to Prof. Jack Owens (Idaho State University). 14
Mark Häberlein: Die Fugger. Geschichte einer Augsburger Familie (1367-1650), Stuttgart 2006, p. 80.
7
process of sugar refining), it became the world‟s major producer of raw sugar. Here again the
Fuggers and merchants from Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle were on the scene with substantial
investments in plantations and mills. Brazilian plantations flooded European markets with ever
increasing quantities of sugar.15
During the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), Iberian dominance of the Atlantic basin
suffered heavily, in particular by the Dutch conquest of Brazilian sugar regions and intrusion
into the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The war also contributed to the decline of the Fugger and
Welser dynasties. Accordingly, German participation – including that of monarchs and private
businessmen – shifted from Spain and Portugal to Holland. In 1621, Johann Friedrich Duke of
Württemberg, invested 30,000 florins into the newly created Dutch WIC, which had been
created specifically for the purpose of breaking into the plantation empire and slave trade of
the Portuguese. In 1629, Imperial civil officers complained that Frankfurt citizens spent
enormous amounts on shares in the Dutch maritime trade. To cut off this drain of capital to the
Emperor‟s arch-enemy, they even advised that all postal correspondence between Frankfurt
and Holland should be secretly monitored. Yet, not only was capital flowing out of the country,
it was also coming in. Johann von Bodeck (1554-1631), at that time the wealthiest man in
Frankfurt, had arrived from Antwerp as a Protestant refugee, transferring his business to the
German banking capital. He made his fortune in the copper trade and in loans to German
territorial rulers, which in fact makes him a successor of the great houses of the Fuggers and
Welsers. The Imperial officers claimed he had invested “several tons of gold” in the Dutch
maritime companies. He was among those who made Frankfurt the successor of the Empire‟s
previously leading financial cities of Nuremberg and Augsburg. Still, capital from the latter
15
Stuart B. Schwartz: A Commonwealth within Itself: The Early Brazilian Sugar Economy, 1550-1670, in:
Schwartz (ed.): Tropical Babylons, pp. 156-200, see pp. 159-160. Eddy Stols: The Expansion of the Sugar
Market in Western Europe, in: Schwartz (ed.): Tropical Babylons, pp. 237-288, see pp. 262-263.
8
place continued to a play role in the Atlantic slave trade. Augsburg bankers and entrepreneurs
like Marx Konrad von Rehlingen acquired large amounts of shares both of the Dutch East
Indian (VOC) and West Indian Companies (WIC). Rehlingen alone held shares worth 50,000
florins in both companies. He had also invested 110,000 florins in English maritime enterprise,
much of it in the African trade.16
German participation in the English slave trade increased after the Spanish War of
Succession, when Britain obtained the Asiento (1713) for supplying Spanish America with
slaves. This enabled Britain to succeed Portugal in the role of the leading slave trading nation.
Again, German investment followed the shifts of political and economic power among the
seafaring nations.17
Germans figured both among the directors of the Royal African Company
– e.g. Peter Meyer from Hamburg – and of the South Sea Company – e.g. Abraham Korten
from Elberfeld. Both Meyer and Korten were also members of the East India Company. This
is not surprising, given the impressive share of Indian calicos among the commodities bartered
for slaves.18
The importance of the Dutch, English and French East India Companies for the
slave trade is often underrated.
3. German participation during the “Second Atlantic System”
16
Heinz Schilling: Innovation through Migration: The Settlements of Calvinistic Netherlanders in
Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Central and Western Europe, in: Histoire Sociale - Social History 31
(May 1983), pp. 7-33, see p. 22-23. Reinhard Hildebrandt: Interkontinentale Wirtschaftbeziehungen und ihre
Finanzierung in der ersten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts, in: Hermann Kellenbenz (ed.): Weltwirtschaft und
währungspolitische Probleme seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters, Stuttgart - New York (1981), pp. 61-76,
see pp. 66-69. 17
Between 1701 and 1725, British vessels shipped c. 380,000 Africans to the Americas; from 1751 to 1775
the figure stood at 860,000. In these periods, Portugal shipped 378,000 and 473,000 Africans, respectively.
David Eltis: The Volume and Structure of the Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Reassessment, in: William and
Mary Quarterly 60 (2001), p. 43. 18
Schulte Beerbühl: Deutsche Kaufleute in London, pp. 111-112 (also see annot. 224), pp. 342-344,
134-139.
9
The Dutch historian Piet Emmer has distinguished two major phases of Atlantic trade: Until
well into the 17th century, European wars, piracy, lack of nautical experience and routine, and
instability in recently established colonies still engendered considerable risks for long-distance
maritime trade. Its most capital intensive and hazardous sector, the slave trade, was therefore
mostly carried out under Asiento conditions or by large monopoly companies, such as the
Dutch West India Company, the French Compagnie des Indes, and the British Royal African
Company. It was these companies that established the costly trading forts on the West African
coast. In the late 17th century, the European sea powers concluded a number of peace treaties,
gradually pacifying the Atlantic World, significantly reducing piracy, and subsequently
reducing transaction costs. This encouraged individual slave traders to enter into the business.
They operated more flexibly and efficiently than the large monopoly companies and thus
contributed to the end of the “First Atlantic System”.19
By 1700, most of the large joint-stock
companies had been abolished. Private enterprise characterised the “Second Atlantic System”,
and Herbert Klein even claims that the slave trade on the African coast in particular became a
domain of free trade. Typically, two or three partners would figure as owners and outfitters of
a ship and raise additional capital from a larger group of smaller investors. The entire group
thus constituted a small joint-stock company, but it was created for the purpose of one single
slaving expedition only. The contract would run for five to seven years, which was the time
span usually required until all the accounts of such a complex business were settled.20
During the 18th century, German traders too followed this pattern. They usually did so by
establishing themselves in a sea port of a slave trading nation, such as the Netherlands, France,
Spain, or Denmark, and operating under the respective flag. Examples from Cadiz and
19
Piet C. Emmer: The Dutch in the Atlantic Economy, 1580-1880. Trade, Slavery and Emancipation,
Aldershot (1998), pp. 12-32. 20
Herbert S. Klein: The Atlantic Slave Trade, Cambridge (1999), pp. 78-82.
10
Bordeaux will illustrate how German merchants linked the Central European economy with
Atlantic markets. During the 18th century, Cadiz was the major entrepôt for trade with Spanish
America, and Bordeaux was the most important French seaport for receiving the produce from
the French Caribbean, such as sugar, coffee, indigo and cotton. As mentioned above, it was
also the second French slaving port. Textiles and metalware constituted the foremost barter
commodities on African coasts. Throughout the centuries, textiles constituted c.50 percent of
all the goods which Europeans shipped to Africa.
Ellermann, Schlieper & Co
An appropriate example is provided by the Ellermann family, originating from two villages
near Osnabrück: Ibbenbüren and Venne. The villages and their region were well-known for the
Europe-wide distribution of the linen cloth and high quality knives they produced.21
. Around
1720, Johann Arnold Ellermann established a branch of their business in Cadiz. According to
Spanish taxation sources, by mid-century it had become the single most successful German
firm established there.22
During the 1730s, Johann Arnold Ellermann settled in Hamburg,
where he became a distinguished member of the city‟s chamber of commerce, and was elected
its chairman in 1744. At the same time, his brothers and nephews continued to run the Cadiz
branch and established another branch in Amsterdam. He also became a ship owner. By 1746,
21
Hannelore Oberpenning: Migration und Fernhandel im „Tödden-System“: Wanderhändler aus dem
nördlichen Münsterland im mittleren und nördlichen Europa des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, Osnabrück
(1996). 22
Manuel Bustos Rodríguez: Los comerciantes de la Carrera de Indias en el Cádiz del siglo XVIII
(1713-1775), Cádiz (1995), pp. 223-224.
11
he sent his own first frigate to Cadiz and on into the Mediterranean. From 1752 until 1761
Johann Arnold Ellermann also held a seat in the assembly of the Hanseatic citizenry.23
The scope of his operations is reflected in his correspondence with Juan Cologan, a
member of an Irish merchant family established in the Canary Islands. These islands were an
important Atlantic staple place for smuggling into the Americas, a last port for supplying slave
ships on their way to Africa, and one of the major Spanish staples for German linen. Cologan
was particularly interested in Westphalian and Silesian linen, which constituted the bulk of
Hamburg exports, due to the huge demand in Atlantic markets.24
During the 1760s, the
Ellermann trading company in Cadiz entered into a partnership with Johann Jakob Schlieper,
thus forming Ellermann, Schlieper & Co. Schlieper had come from the town of Benfeld (near
Strasbourg) in the Alsatian cotton processing region, and had married a Spanish woman. In
1776, his daughter Francisca María married Prudencio Delaville, a French merchant from
Nantes. In Nantes, the Delavilles were one of the leading families engaged in the slave trade,
and in Cadiz, Prudencio Delaville and his brother Armand François were shareholding
partners of the Compañía gaditana de negros, at that time the largest Spanish slave trading
enterprise. Supplying this company with textiles for the barter trade on the African coasts was
most probably one of the intended effects of this familial and commercial alliance established
by the trading house Hermann, Ellermann & Schlieper.25
Merchants like the Ellermanns built
networks that linked Germany‟s textile regions directly with transatlantic markets.
23
Klaus Weber: Deutsche Kaufleute im Atlantikhandel (1680-1830): Unternehmen und Familien in
Hamburg, Cádiz und Bordeaux, München (2004), pp. 224-225. 24
In 1753, Cadiz received some 47 percent of Hamburg‟s duty-paid linen exports to Spain, while 33
percent were shipped to the Canary Islands. Staatsarchiv Hamburg, Admiralitätskollegium, 371-2, F6, vol.
18 (1753). 25
Bibiano Torres Ramírez: La compañía gaditana de negros, Sevilla (1973), pp. 40, 80-81. Weber:
Deutsche Kaufleute, pp. 273-275. Johann Peter Hermann, the third partner, was a nephew of the Ellermann
founder generation.
12
During the 18th century, Spain was but a minor player in the Atlantic slave trade. By the
1710s, France in contrast had risen from a non-player in this business to the third nation,
ranking behind Britain and Portugal.26
Its ascent was owed to the spectacular success of the
sugar plantations of the French Antilles. Due to their extremely fertile soils, these islands
outperformed Brazilian production. Through much of the century, sugar from Saint-Domingue
alone covered up to three quarters of consumption in the Western hemisphere.27
The African
dimension of German trade is therefore even more obvious in Bordeaux than in Cadiz. It is
probably best personified in the merchants Friedrich Romberg and Johann Jakob Bethmann.
Friedrich von Romberg
Born 1729 in a small village close to the iron manufacturing city of Iserlohn, Friedrich
Romberg learned his logistic skills as head and founder of a Brussels-based long distance
transportation enterprise, linking Flanders with Italy. Another important business of his was
provisioning the French navy ports of Brest and Cherbourg with naval supplies, such as ropes,
masts, hemp and tar. During the American War, which was a boom period for the neutral flag
of the Austrian Netherlands, he also became an important ship owner. Within a few years, he
established the shipping company Fréderic Romberg fils & Ricour in Oostende, a maritime
insurance company in Bruges, the slave trading company Romberg & Cie in Ghent (for
business mainly with Cuba), and a calico factory in Brussels. In 1783, he further created the
Bordeaux slave trading company Romberg, Bapst & Cie. Minor shareholding partners in this
firm were Georg Christoph Bapst, from a family of financiers originating from Palatine, and
26
Eltis: The Volume and Structure, p. 43. 27
Herbert S. Klein: African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean, Oxford - New York (1986), pp.
56-58.
13
the Brussels banking brothers Walckiers. All these enterprises were complemented with shares
in the textile production in the Iserlohn area, particularly in an important linen bleaching plant.
In 1784, Romberg was knighted by the Emperor Joseph II.28
Within a few years, the company Romberg, Bapst & Cie became the major slave trading
and plantation firm in Bordeaux, extending its slaving expeditions as far as Mozambique.
During this feverish boom period of the plantation economy, rising prices for African unfree
labour had made many planters become debtors of the slave traders. The latter increasingly
took over indebted plantations, or at least the plantation management. Their claims were then
satisfied with the produce from these estates. Romberg, Bapst & Cie acted likewise. At the
outbreak of the Revolution, the company owned or managed some 20 plantations on
Saint-Domingue, producing predominantly cotton and indigo. It had permanently five to six
slave ships in service, which represented a capital of c. 400,000 livres tournois. The pay for the
200 seamen employed on them gave rise to running costs of 100,000 livres per annum
(officers not included).29
The enormous turnaround of capital and the poor reliability of its
customers caused the shipping company to run into crisis, accelerated by a long-term decline
of the prices of colonial goods. By 1788, the total sum owed by the planters amounted to 4.72
million livres. In the following year, a consortium of twelve Bordeaux trading houses – seven
of them led by Germans, most prominently among them Johann Jacob Bethmann – raised 4.15
million livres to prevent the collapse of Romberg‟s firm. But its downfall was accelerated by
the slave revolt on Saint-Domingue, which started in 1791 and ultimately led to the Haitian
Revolution. Further efforts were made, but they only served to increase the total financial
28
Françoise Thésée: Négociants bordelais et colons de Saint-Domingue. Liaisons d‟habitation. La maison
Henry Romberg, Babst & Cie. 1783-1793, Paris (1972), p. 23-26. Weber: Deutsche Kaufleute, pp. 195-198. 29
Jean Tarrade: Le commerce colonial de la France à la fin de l‟ancien régime: l‟évolution du régime de
l„Exclusif de 1763 à 1789, Paris (1972), p. 46. Thésée: Négociants bordelais, pp. 51-72, 38-39.
14
losses. When the final settlement of accounts was made in 1807, they amounted to the
impressive sum of 34.24 million livres. The failure of the company had repercussions in
important European places of finance, and almost ruined the heirs of Bethmann, being the
most reputable member of the German community in Bordeaux.30
Johann Jakob von Bethmann
Johann Jakob von Bethmann (1717-1792) had been established in France as early as 1740, and
through his marriage with the daughter of the wealthy Bordeaux ship-owner Pierre Desclaux,
he soon became one of the city‟s major shipping magnates. The marriage into this elite family
also won him a license for direct trade with Canada and the French Caribbean. During his
business life, he sent ships to the colonies at least 53 times (mostly with the participation of
other shareholders), and he commissioned at least five new vessels to be built. In 1766, he
successfully applied for the post of Imperial consul in Bordeaux, and in 1776 he was granted
an Imperial knighthood.31
Johann Jakob was a brother of Johann Philipp and Simon Moritz Bethmann, who ran the
Frankfurt banking house Gebrüder Bethmann. At that time, their bank and that of the Metzler
family were the dominant houses of the German financial capital. The Metzler family, too, had
a presence in Bordeaux. Two of their sons, Jean Albert (1742-1767) and Peter Metzler
(1748-1823), would represent the family business on Saint-Domingue, Guadeloupe and
Martinique. Given the considerable capital demand of the Atlantic slaving and plantation
economies, Atlantic ports like Nantes and Bordeaux maintained close links with merchant
30
Thésée: Négociants bordelais, pp. 195-197, 200. 31
Wolfgang Henninger: Johann Jakob von Bethmann 1717-1792. Kaufmann, Reeder und kaiserlicher
Konsul in Bordeaux, 2 vols, Bochum (1993).
15
bankers in the financial capitals of Germany and Switzerland32
, who in turn maintained close
relations with Central European cotton and linen processing industries. On its continental side,
the Frankfurt bank Gebrüder Bethmann acted as the primary capital lender to rural
proto-industries all over Germany. On leasehold it ran large Saxon copper mines, copper being
one of the crucial raw materials in Atlantic ship building. The Bethmann bank had developed
its own particular commercial profile, distinguishing it from major banking houses in Atlantic
port cities. It made almost 90 percent of its profits in rural manufacturing areas like the
Rhineland and Saxony, with not a single of its major clients established in places exceeding
50,000 inhabitants.33
This does not indicate that Gebrüder Bethmann was simply a continental
enterprise – on the contrary, the bank financially linked rural manufactures with the Atlantic
markets on which these depended.
As early as the 1760s, Bethmann had considered participation in the Danish Guinea
Company, with financial backing from his Frankfurt brothers, but prudence led them to stand
back from the plan (the Danish company went bankrupt in the following decade).34
With his
1789 support of 200,000 livres to the Romberg company he did in fact become a shareholder
in a large slave trading enterprise. The cases of Romberg and Bethmann are by no means
unique. The importance of German financiers in the Atlantic slave trade is also exemplified by
the above-mentioned Baring Brothers, established in London, and by Heinrich Carl
Schimmelmann (1724-1782), whose career took him from a provider of military supplies to
the Prussian army during the Seven Years War to Denmark‟s minister of finance, major
32
For the Swiss aspects of the slave trade and plantation complex see Thomas David / Bouda Etemad /
Janick Marina Schaufelbuehl: Schwarze Geschäfte. Die Beteiligung von Schweizern an Sklaverei und
Sklavenhandel im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert, Zürich (2005). French language edition: La Suisse et l‟esclavage
des noirs, Lausanne (2005). 33
Friedrich Zellfelder: Das Kundennetz des Bankhauses Gebrüder Bethmann, Frankfurt am Main, im
Spiegel der Hauptbücher (1738-1816), Stuttgart (1994). 34
Henninger: Johann Jakob von Bethmann, pp. 353-355.
16
Danish slave trader, and owner of sugar estates on the Danish Caribbean colonies St. Thomas,
St. Croix and St. Jan.35
4. Quantitative assessment
Did this presence of a small German merchant elite in major port cities of colonial empires
have any tangible impact on the Central European hinterlands? This question can only be
answered by an assessment of the exportation of Central European products and the influx of
colonial goods on Central European markets.
The taste of consumers in colonial markets is reflected by an 1806 report of British
merchants to Parliament: “The Spanish Traders are very strongly prejudiced in favour of
German linens ... When a Spanish trader comes into a store in a British [Caribbean] Island,
the first article he asks for is German linens ...”.36
This demand dated back far into the 18th
century: in a 1744 report on the British linen trade with the West Indies, the eminent Jamaican
plantation owner William Beckford informed the Parliamentary Committee that “all the
Negroes and the poor White People are generally cloathed with German linens, from 6d to 9d
an Ell, called Osnabrughs”. A Mr. Ashley, similarly, reported that the 70,000 slaves on
Barbados were “usually clothed with Foreign „Osnabrughs‟”.37
Such labelling demonstrates
that the products from particular Northern German regions had made themselves a name, as
„stout Weser flaxen‟, „true born Osnabrughs‟, „true born Tecklenburghs‟, or „Creguelas de
35
Christian Degn: Die Schimmelmanns im atlantischen Dreieckshandel. Gewinn und Gewissen,
Neumünster (1974), pp. 2-10, 91, 96-98, 104, 490, 405. 36
Otto-Ernst Krawehl: Hamburgs Schiffs- und Warenverkehr mit England und den englischen Kolonien
1840-1860, Köln - Wien (1977), p. 441. 37
British Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons, Sessional Papers of the Eighteenth Century, Reports
& Papers 1742-1760, vol. 19: Report on Linen 1744, Wilmington (1975), pp. 18-19. I owe this information
to Dr. Margrit Schulte Beerbühl (Düsseldorf).
17
Westphalia‟ (the Weser is the navigable river linking the hinterland with Bremen; Osnabrück
is a city, Tecklenburg a county in the province of Westphalia).38
These fabrics were not only in demand in American colonies, but also in Africa. Herbert
Klein has even claimed that on West African coasts, Indian cottons which “were in great
demand in the seventeenth century”, were replaced “by German-produced linens from Silesia
in the early decades of the 1700s as the prime textile import”.39
The portion of German
manufactures among the barter commodities used for the purchase of African slaves can
indeed hardly be underestimated. Sources very rarely offer information on the origin of such
goods, but where such information is available the portion of manufactures made in Germany
is surprisingly high. One of those rare examples is provided with the slave ship Amiral, which
left Bordeaux for the Guinea coast in 1744. Just as on most slavers, the bulk of its cargo
consisted in textiles. Out of the total of 5,095 bales of cotton and linen it had on board, 1,440
derived from Nantes, only 675 from Rouen and 260 from Amsterdam, but as much as 2,720
from Hamburg.40
The German economist Johann Georg Büsch (1728-1800) already
highlighted the importance of German linen on African markets, in mentioning a ship having
left the French port of Lorient in 1720, with cargo made up entirely of textiles imported from
Hamburg.41
Such observations on overseas markets are confirmed by data from German regions of
textile production. From the 1740s to the 1780s, more than three quarters of Silesia‟s linen
38
Edith Schmitz: Leinengewerbe und Leinenhandel in Nordwestdeutschland, Köln 1967, pp. 33, 86, 92. 39
Herbert S. Klein: The Atlantic Slave Trade, Cambridge (1999), p. 114. Klein unfortunately makes no
reference to the source of the information. 40
Saugera: Bordeaux port négrier, pp. 246, 352. Eric Saugera notes that the load of the Amiral was typical
for West African markets. 41
Johann G. Büsch: Versuch einer Geschichte der Hamburgischen Handlung nebst zwei kleineren Schriften
verwandten Inhalts, Hamburg (1797), pp. 88-89. In his account, Büsch makes reference to a report by the
French voyager Desmarchais.
18
products – its annual value was oscillating roughly between three and six million taler – were
destined for the Atlantic nations of Western Europe and their respective export markets. Some
of it was even shipped directly to the Americas.42
Far smaller territories also exported large
quantities. In the late 1780s, the County of Ravensberg (in Westphalia; not to be confused with
the above-mentioned Ravensburg) exported annually linen worth some 0.75 million taler.43
The British example demonstrates the importance of these textiles on Atlantic markets: In
the first half of the eighteenth century about 15 percent of all imports to Britain consisted of
linen. As Karin Newman has pointed out, 70 to 80 percent of all imported linen textiles came
from Germany, and 90 percent of this volume was re-exported across the Atlantic. This means
that about two thirds of all British linen exports were of German origin. Irish linen followed in
second place, and English textiles only ranked third.44
If all the bales of German-made linen
re-exported in one of these years had been unrolled and pieced together, it would have
produced a length of 11,000 kilometres – large enough to span the Atlantic from Britain to
New England, and on to Jamaica.
The French and Spanish contexts provide similar examples. The accounts of the
important French trading house of Fornier frères, established in Cadiz, reveal that about two
thirds of its textile purchases during the years from 1768 to 1786 were made in Germany. Out
of the total expenditure of 12 million reales, roughly 3 million were spent in Hamburg, 1
million in Bremen and 2 million in Silesia. Something between 1.5 and 2 million reales was
spent in Holland, probably also for German fabrics, as Dutch ports served as important outlets
42
Alfred Zimmermann: Blüthe und Verfall des Leinengewerbes in Schlesien. Gewerbe- und Handelspolitik
dreier Jahrhunderte, Breslau (1885), pp. 460-467. 43
Edith Schmitz: Leinengewerbe und Leinenhandel in Nordwestdeutschland (1650-1850), Köln (1967), p.
81 44
Karin Newman: Anglo-Hamburg Trade in the Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries,
(unpublished PhD thesis) London (1979), p. 202.
19
for Westphalian goods. Only some 35 percent of the purchases were made in France.45
At the
same time, the Spanish textile industry too absorbed important quantities from Central Europe.
According to Pierre ViIlar, the Catalan industries imported in the year of 1793 only some 1.2
million ells of linen (equivalent almost 1.1 million metres) from Hamburg, which were
usually printed or dyed before being re-exported as Spanish fabrics.46
How can the undeniable export success of Central European merchandise on Western
markets be explained? The main key to understanding this is the Early Modern Price
Revolution. The term, famously coined by Earl Hamilton, is used to describe the effects of
excessive Spanish American silver mining, which caused a decline in wages and prices
stretching across the Atlantic and deep into Europe, from the beginning of the Spanish
Conquista. Inflation spread with the bullion itself, from the Mexican and Peruvian mining
centres to Cuba, with the silver-laden Spanish galleons across the Ocean to Seville and Cadiz.
There, prices rose faster than in Northern Spain, and in Spain they rose faster than in France
and Italy.47
In France and Italy price levels were above those in England or the Netherlands,
but still, Dutch and English wages and prices were even above those in German lands.
And this is the point. This Price Revolution instigated an intercontinental competition for
labour. The comparably cheaper Central European wages attracted production of goods
45
Robert Chamboredon: Une société de commerce languedocienne a Cadix: Simon et Arnail Fornier et Cie
(Nov. 1768-Mars 1786), in: Antonio García-Baquero González (ed.): La burguesía de negocios en la
Andalucía de la ilustración, Cadiz (1991), vol. 2, pp. 35-53, see pp. 35, 49. 46
Pierre Vilar: La Catalogne dans l'Espagne moderne. Recherches sur les fondements économiques des
structures nationales, vol. 3, Paris (1962), pp. 118, 126. I owe this reference to Dr. Niels Wiecker. 47
The first modern scholar to treat this problem systematically has been Earl J. Hamilton: American
Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain, 1501-1650, Cambridge (Mass.) (1934). Earl J. Hamilton: War
and Prices in Spain, 1651-1800, Cambridge (Mass.) (1947). Since, there have been quite some debates on
the causes of this inflation, and today, a multi-causal explanation is generally accepted: next to the growth of
bullion, a number of other factors contributed to this longue-durée inflation: population growth,
dissemination of cashless payment techniques, increasing velocity of circulation etc., yet the effects remain
the same.
20
destined specifically for Africa and the Americas. These circumstances favoured the growth of
Central European proto-industry. The Atlantic dimension is essential to our understanding of
this development. On the Atlantic markets Alsatian, Westphalian or Silesian textile products
were more competitive than their French or Dutch counterparts, let alone Spanish fabrics.
Yet, these macro-economic factors not only benefited German export trade, but also the
importation of colonial goods. Given the surplus of French sugar production, the neutral city
state of Hamburg almost naturally became one of the major trading partners of France, and
one of the principal places in the North for processing and re-distributing sugar and other
French plantation products. In 1727, about 200 sugar refineries were operative in the
Hanseatic City, and more than 400 by 1805. In Amsterdam, their number reached a mere 90
around 1750, in Rotterdam there were far less.48
The numbers in French ports cities were
even lower.49
According to a 1807 report, Hamburg had received in 1788 from Bordeaux
alone far more merchandise (worth 35.6 million mark banco) than from all English ports
taken together (summing up to 11.9 million mark banco) only. Most of the imports from
France consisted in sugar and coffee.50
Key players in managing this flow of commodities
were Huguenots who had come to Hamburg from the 1680s, when the intolerance of Louis
XIV drove many of them from their homelands. By transferring energy-intensive sugar
48
Astrid Petersson: Zuckersiedergewerbe und Zuckerhandel in Hamburg. Von den Anfängen bis zum Ende
der Kontinentalsperre, in: Hamburger Wirtschafts-Chronik N.F. 1 (2001), pp. 53-81, see pp. 55-58. Weber:
Deutsche Kaufleute, pp. 387, 392. Jonathan Israel: Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585-1740, Oxford 1989,
p. 265. Soetbeer claims even 450 for the year 1805; see Adolf Soetbeer: Über Hamburgs Handel, vol. 1,
Hamburg (1840), p. 18. 49
Warren Scoville: The Persecution of the Huguenots and French Economic Development 1680-1720,
Berkeley - Los Angeles (1960), pp. 241. 50
Archives Nationales, Paris, F12
566-595 (Commerce et industrie, départements hanséatiques). The figures
are taken from a Hamburg report, dated 30 June 1807 and directed to France, on the devastating commercial
consequences of the blockade. In this context, the figures of trade with France may have been deliberately
exaggerated, but they certainly reflect the importance of this sector of Hanseatic trade. I owe the reference to
this source to Prof. Silvia Marzagalli (Nice).
21
refining from French Atlantic seaports to the estuary of the Elbe River, they took advantage of
the lower costs for labour and fuel. In 18th century French Atlantic seaports, complaints were
common about the low wages and cheapness of coal in places like Hamburg.51
Central and Eastern Europe were the primary markets for sugar from the French
Caribbean Islands. Occasionally, German textile workers were even paid with barter
commodities such as sugar, coffee and tobacco. The general decline of prices for these
products and the extra purchasing power generated by the export-orientated German
„proto-industries‟ allowed even rural population to consume considerable quantities of these
formerly exclusive goods.52
5. Global competition and demographic effects
Germany‟s labour-intensive proto-industries typically emerged in regions where poor soil and
climate obliged the rural population to earn additional income, to purchase food
supplementing their local harvests. Their poor wages attracted textile producers to transfer
manufacturing to such provinces. The general tendency was a move from more western and
more urban to more eastern and rural areas. With ever increasing volumes of German
manufactures being exported, these hitherto poor regions became permanent importers of food,
which enabled them to escape from the Malthusian trap. In consequence, most of the
demographic growth in 18th century Germany was generated in these areas, and in particular
51
Archives départementales de la Gironde (Bordeaux), C 4265 (Registre ou sont transcrites des Lettres ...
de la Chambre de Commerce ..., 1774-1785), fol. 169. Also see Klaus Weber: La migration huguenote dans
le contexte de l‟économique atlantique: l‟exemple de Hambourg, in: Guido Braun / Susanne Lachenicht
(eds.): Les états allemands et les huguenots, München (2007), pp. 125-136. 52
Peter Kriedte: Vom Großhändler zum Detaillisten: der Handel mit Kolonialwaren im 17. und 18.
Jahrhundert, in: Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte (1994,1), pp. 11-36.
22
among the landless rural poor, who depended even more on income in cash. In the
Westphalian linen regions of Bielefeld and Osnabrück, population grew from 42 inhabitants
per square kilometre in 1722 to 74 inhabitants in 1801. Around that year, the German average
per square kilometre was around 40 to 45 inhabitants.53
Similar figures from proto-industrial
regions in Silesia (linen), Pomerania (linen), Swabia (linen, clocks) and Bohemia (linen, metal
ware, glassware) indicate how widespread this phenomenon was.54
In some areas, growth of
population between 1750 and 1800 even exceeded 100 percent. Hans-Ulrich Wehler reckoned
that the causes of this “Demographic Revolution” are still unknown, but that the 18th century
proto-industrial development might provide some approach to the problem.55
He failed to
provide empirical evidence, but it seems very much that this assumption hits the nail on the
head.
It is noteworthy that the concentration of export-orientated proto-industries in specific
regions resembles the situation in pre-colonial Indian port cities, such as Goa, Madras and
Pondicherry. The demand of the European East India Companies for cotton fabrics, mostly
destined for Africa, had actually transformed these hitherto insignificant coastal towns into
important economic hubs. The European companies and their indigenous agents encouraged
textile workers from inland regions to settle in and around the port cities, and to produce
specifically on demand.56
Typical features of this coastal economy were also shared by
German textile regions:
53
Clemens Wischermann: Preußischer Staat und westfälische Unternehmer zwischen Spätmerkantilismus
und Liberalismus, Köln (1992), p. 87. 54
Frank Göttmann: Der Raum zwischen oberer Donau und Schweizer Alpen im 18. Jahrhundert: eine
integrierte agrarisch-gewerbliche Wirtschaftsregion, in: Scripta Mercaturae 25 (1991) Heft 1/2, pp. 1-40.
Arthur Salz: Geschichte der Böhmischen Industrie in der Neuzeit, München - Leipzig (1913), p. 283. 55
Wehler: Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, vol. 1, pp. 69-70. 56
Tsukasa Mizushima: Globaler Handel und binnenwirtschaftliche Entwicklung: südindische Hafenstädte
in der vorkolonialen Zeit, in: Hamburger Wirtschafts-Chronik N.F. 7 (2007), pp. 117-150. Kirti N.
23
- competitiveness bought about by low cost of labour;
- dependency of home industries on foreign buyers and on export in general;
- monetarisation of rural economies;
- high demographic growth;
- dependency on importation of food.
The global dimension of the development of Central European proto-industries is
reflected in the fact that textile workers in German hinterlands and on South Indian coasts had
in fact been forced to enter in a direct competition for African markets. It was not nations that
were having economic relations, but specific markets and manufacturing regions from three
continents, interacting with each other in the context of a global competition in wages, prices
and qualities. It is worthwhile recalling that both the German and the Indian boom regions then
suffered from the 19th century industrialisation of European textile manufacturing.
6. Summary
In contrary to the widespread assumptions about the economic backwardness of early modern
Central Europe, and its separateness from the Atlantic world, entrepreneurs from the Holy
Roman Empire did actively participate in the process of European expansion. This implied the
investment of capital from Southern Germany in the 15th century sugar economies of Madeira
and the Canary Islands and in the 16th century sugar economies of Santo Domingo and Brazil.
Since the 1620s, with the intrusion of the Netherlands into the Atlantic world, German capital
Chaudhuri: The Structure of the Indian Textile Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, in:
Tirthankar Roy (ed.): Cloth and Commerce. Textiles in Colonial India, New Delhi - London (1996), pp.
33-84. see pp. 43, 45, 56. Prasannan Parthasarathi: The Transition to a Colonial Economy. Weavers,
Merchants and Kings in South India 1720-1800, Cambridge (2001), p. 73.
24
shifted from the Iberian Empires to the large Dutch monopoly companies, which were created
specifically for the purposes of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and production of raw sugar in
Brazil. During the Thirty Years War, the city of Frankfurt increasingly replaced Augsburg as
the German financial capital, and accordingly channelled much of the German investments
into slave trade and plantations. During this period, England also joined the small group of
nations owning New World plantations and trading slaves. Consequently, German investors
also channelled significant amounts into the English slave trade. Now, there were increasingly
businessmen from more northern regions (e.g. Elberfeld, and coastal areas) among them.
After the turn to the 18th century, when European treaties had created safer conditions for
maritime trade, and monopoly companies went in decline, Germans adapted to these
conditions and established smaller, but nonetheless efficient slaving companies in the port
cities of Spain, France, and the Austrian Netherlands. Like the protagonists of the previous
centuries, these entrepreneurs typically united the maritime dimension with close links to or
direct participation in the production of barter commodities for the purchase of African slaves,
mostly textiles and metalware manufactured by the workers of rural home industries. The
enormous capital demand of the slave trade and the plantations complex also drew on Central
European sources. It is noteworthy that the most eminent German banking dynasties had
always been heavily involved, ranging from the Fuggers and Welsers in the 16th century,
through Bodeck in the 17th, to the Bethmanns and Metzlers in the 18th century.
African markets and the growing slave populations of the plantations in both Americas
absorbed huge quantities of Central European products. The relevant manufacturing regions,
hitherto economically disadvantaged, benefited from the demand generated in extra-European
regions. While the subsequent influx of bullion and of colonial goods triggered a significant
25
demographic growth in rural Germany, the African continent suffered from the demographic
losses caused by the slave trade.
26
British Atlantic Slave Trade and East Indian Textiles, 1650s-1808
Kazuo KOBAYASHI
(Osaka University, JAPAN;
JSPS Research Fellow)
Introduction
In this paper I try to answer the question of why Britain was able to purchase more than three
millions slaves before abolishing the slave trade in 1807. During the period the British
engaged in the trade in the Atlantic Ocean they also traded with other areas such as
Continental Europe, the Baltic Sea regions, Asia and others. Britain imported grains, raw
materials, colonial goods, and luxury goods from these areas. Some were re-exported to fulfill
the demand of buyers and to promote other trades.
There are many studies that discuss factors of the expansion of British overseas trade.
Some suggest that consumption-oriented change led to the growth of workforce demand in
colonial America and the Caribbean Islands.1 Others argue that the credit systems in West
Africa contributed to the dominant position of Britain among its European competitors in the
eighteenth century.2
It is certain that demand for labor was a sine qua non for continuing the slave trade in that
period. But this statement only explains the motivation for the trade. Also, the financial
institutions in West Africa probably promoted the trade. However this argument seems only to
explore the aspect of efficiency. Therefore, if we want to answer the question I posed at the
beginning, other perspectives will be required.
Thus I try to shed light on the commodities exported or re-exported from British ports
from the perspective of international trade. In order to complete this task, I use not only the
official records of British external trade, the well-known Customs 3 and 17, but also two
1 J. M. Price, „What Did Merchants Do? Reflection on British Overseas Trade, 1660-1790‟, Economic
History Review, 2nd Ser., 68-2, 1989, pp. 267-284; D. Richardson, „The Slave Trade, Sugar, and British
Economic Growth, 1748-1776‟, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 17-4, 1987, pp. 739-769. See also R.
Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History of the British West Indies 1623-1775, Baltimore, 1974. 2 P. E. Lovejoy and D. Richardson, „Trust, Pawnship, and Atlantic History: The Institutional Foundations of
the Old Calabar Slave Trade‟, American Historical Review, 104-2, 1999, pp. 333-355; P. E. Lovejoy and D,
Richardson, „“This Horrid Hole”: Royal Authority, Commerce and Credit at Bonny, 1690-1840‟, Journal of
African History, 45-3, 2004, pp. 363-392.
27
merchants sources to compensate for the deficit in those records.3 These sources are not only
helpful in exploring the value and volume of the trade, but also in finding out the trading
routes.
Ch. 1 British Commercial Expansion in the Early Modern Period
1. British Commercial Sphere: the Age of „Commercial Revolution‟
According to Ralph Davis, England underwent a major change in its trading trend from the
second half of the seventeenth century. Up to the middle of that century, woolen textiles
produced in England had been the leading product for external trade. However, as trade with
East India and the Atlantic world grew, the proportion of woolen textiles diminished. Instead,
re-exported commodities produced in both areas reached about 30 percent of the total value of
exports in the late 17th century. This phenomenon, called the „Commercial Revolution‟, meant
a growth in the significance of trade with non-European regions.4
As to the background that caused this change Jacob Price points out three factors of
demand: (1) the increase of demand in England for „exotic‟ goods from the Atlantic and Asian
worlds and raw materials from Continental Europe; (2) the increase of demand in north-west
European countries for goods of the Asian and Atlantic worlds that were re-exported from
England; (3) the increase of demand in the Atlantic world for English products and goods from
Asia and Europe.5 The increasing dependence on non-European goods stimulated the shipping
industry in England. Moreover, the demand for raw materials such as wood and iron for that
industry and the navy led to an expansion of trade with the Baltic Sea regions.6 These trends
continued even into the 18th century.
There is no doubt that London was the most important port in England during this period,
even though it had some structural problems. According to trade statistics, although its
position relatively declined as the share of outports rose after the 1740s, the pace was slow.
Rather, London still maintained about 70% of the total value of imports and more than 65% of
3 Regarding the statistical records of the British trade, I rely on the following works. E. B. Schumpeter,
English Overseas Trade Statistics 1697-1808, Oxford, 1960; M. Johnson, Anglo-African Trade in the
Eighteenth Century: English Statistics on African Trade 1699-1808, J. T. Lindblad and R. Ross (eds.),
Leiden, 1990. 4 R. Davis, „English Foreign Trade, 1660-1700‟, Economic History Review, 2nd Ser., 7-2, 1954, pp.
150-166; R. Davis, „English Foreign Trade, 1700-74‟, Economic History Review, 2nd Ser., 15-2, 1962-63,
pp. 285-303; R. Davis, A Commercial Revolution, London, 1967. 5 Price, „What Did Merchants Do?‟.
6 D. Farnie, „The Commercial Empire of the Atlantic, 1607-1783‟, Economic History Review, 2nd Ser.,
15-2, 1962-3, pp. 205-218.
28
the total value of exports (including re-exports) by the 1770s, and overwhelmed the total value
of all other ports in trade with every area (except for Ireland).7
There are many factors that sustained the leading position of London in this period. For
example, the increase of population (from 575,000 in 1700 to 959,000 in 1801) and the
development of industry boosted the demand for provisions and raw materials. Also, many
chartered companies, such as the East India Company (EIC), placed their headquarters in
London. In addition, there were many important commercial and financial institutions like the
Bank of England, the Lombard and West End Banks, and the Royal Exchange. Furthermore,
the geographical location, in that the Thames was not so far from the high seas, was also
suitable to trade.8
It was merchants who played a key role in the period of the „Commercial Revolution‟. In
1771 there were more than 230 companies in just four streets of the City, and the number
increased during the eighteenth century.9 However their activities were inseparable from the
state, especially the Royal Navy. In wartime, they needed protection from the navy. On the
other hand, they supplied wood products and naval goods imported from the Baltic Sea areas
and North America. Thus there was a mutual relationship between merchants and the Royal
Navy in the 17th and 18th centuries.10
What is more, the regulation system that the Navigation Acts represented protected British
interests in its colonial trade. Under this system all colonial trade had to be carried in British or
colonial ships. This meant the exclusion of Dutch shipping so that the First Anglo-Dutch War
took place soon after the establishment of the Act of 1651. The Acts were changed and revised
again and again until the repeal of 1849.11
2. British International Trade in the Eighteenth Century
7 C. J. French, „“Crowded with traders and a great commerce”: London‟s Domination of English Overseas
Trade, 1700-1775‟, London Journal, 17-1, pp. 27-33; H. G. Roseveare, „The eighteenth-century port of
London reconsidered‟, in A. Guimera, D. Romero (eds.), Puertos y Sistemas Portuarios (Siglos 16-20):
Actas del Coloquio Internacional El Sistema Portuario Español, Madrid, 1996, pp. 37-52. 8 French, „London‟s Domination‟, pp. 29-30; K. Morgan, Slavery, Atlantic Trade and the British Economy,
1660-1800, Cambridge, 2000, pp. 91-93; C. Gill, Merchants and Mariners of the 18th Century, London,
1961, pp. 9-11. 9 Gill, Merchants and Mariners, p. 10.
10 J. M. Price, „The Imperial Economy‟, in P. J. Marshall (ed.), The Oxford History of the British Empire:
The Eighteenth Century, Oxford, 1998, p. 79. It can be said that merchants also contributed more or less to
the establishment of the so-called „Fiscal Military State‟ of the eighteenth century. P. K. O‟Brien,
„Inseparable Connections: Trade, Economy, Fiscal State, and the Expansion of Empire, 1699-1815‟, in
Marshall, The eighteenth century, pp. 53-77. 11
P. J. Marshall, „Britain without America-A Second Empire?‟ in Marshall, The eighteenth century, pp. 576,
585-586; Davis, „English Foreign Trade, 1660-1700‟, p. 153.
29
As mentioned above, the value of re-exports began to increase from the late seventeenth
century, and marked its „Golden Age‟ 12
in the 1770s. In this section, we set out to
comprehend more concrete features of British trade in the eighteenth Century based on
statistical records.
Imports
In the 18th century the total value of British imports expanded about five times. As Table 1
shows, the annual average of British imports grew from about £4,790,000 (1701-1705) to
about £23,960,000 (1796-1800). Although the years 1796-1800 saw the start of the
Napoleonic wars, the statistical records still show an increasing tendency.
Table 1 The Total Value of British Imports and Exports, 1701-1800 (Unit: £1,000)
Imports Exports (incl. Re-exports)
1701-1705 29,332 23,971
1721-1725 38,945 33,281
1746-1750 57,062 37,149
1771-1775 79,163 64,422
1796-1800 163,700 119,780
Source: Schumpeter, Trade Statistics, pp. 15-16.
Note: Specie is excluded from these values.
During this period the greatest trade was with the British West Indies. While its value
(£610,000) was smaller than that of Germany (£660,000) in 1701-1705, rapid growth
followed, especially in the second half of the century, and it became the most valuable region
where Britain traded (£590,000, 1796-1800). In addition to that, Colonial America, later the
United States, Canada and Newfoundland also played similar roles to the British West Indies.
These places provided Britain and other European countries with sugar, tobacco, dyestuffs,
rice and raw materials like wood and cotton. Most of them were produced in slave
plantations13
12
Toru Matsui, Sekai Shijo no Keisei [The Making of a World Market], Tokyo, 1991, p. 198. 13
Schumpeter, Trade Statistics, p. 18.
30
Table 2 The Volume and Value of Textiles Imported by EIC, 1701-1810
Volume of Textiles Value of Textiles Total Value of Import
(Unit: piece) (Unit: £) (Unit: £)
1701-1710 2,774,811 1,665,815 2,700,860
1711-1720 5,521,034 3,490,957 4,783,805
1721-1730 7,826,955 4,150,928 6,332,930
1731-1740 7,652,189 4,286,018 6,558,927
1741-1750 7,717,935 5,224,402 7,779,032
1751-1760 5,274,696 4,185,138 7,786,580
1761-1770 6,669,230 5,402,703 10,967,768
1771-1780 8,871,203 7,809,414 15,705,052
1781-1790 7,644,347 7,612,661 22,529,948
1791-1800 13,421,526 10,632,461 29,760,737
1801-1810 21,101,976 7,662,976 28,932,323
Source: K. N. Chaudhuri, The trading world of Asia and the English East India
Company, 1660-1760, Cambridge, 1978, Appendix 5; H. V. Bowen, The
East India Company: trade and domestic financial statistics, 1755-1838,
UK Data Archive, Study No. 5690, 2007
(http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/findingData/snDescription.asp?sn=5690,
accessed on 3rd December 2008).
The East Indies that India represented also became one of the most important regions for
British international commerce. As is well-known, East Indian textiles such as calico and
muslin were sought-after items in the world. They made up more than 50% of the total imports
from East India during most of the eighteenth century, as Table 2 suggests. Mass flooding of
the market with cotton textiles imported by the EIC led to opposition campaigns by domestic
manufacturers of woolens and silks that caused prohibitive measures to be enacted in the early
stages of the eighteenth century. However, there were loopholes that allowed some kinds of
cotton textiles to be imported from India or to be re-exported to other countries/regions.14
14
D. Ormrod, „English re-export and the Dutch staple market in the eighteenth century‟, in D. C. Coleman
and P. Mathias (eds.), Enterprise and History: essays in honour of Charles Wilson, Cambridge, 1984, pp.
89-115. In this article Ormrod argues that more than two thirds of the East India textiles imported were
re-exported to Amsterdam until the 1740s.
31
Therefore, in spite of such a ban, the value and volume of imported cotton textiles from India
grew almost 10 times throughout the eighteenth century.
As already mentioned, imports from the Baltic Sea regions that followed the Atlantic
regions and the East Indies in terms of volume played a key role in promoting the English
„Commercial Revolution‟ at the time. In particular, Maria Bogucka calls the latter-half of the
eighteenth century the „raw material stage‟, when a wide range of raw materials such as wood
(oak, inside panels, and masts), iron, flax and hemp, and some provisions were imported
through the Sound.15
As to goods from Continental Europe, linens from Germany should be noted. As E. K.
Newman underscores, German linens contributed to the English „Commercial Revolution‟ in
the eighteenth century, especially in its first half.16
These textiles were also re-exported to
Africa to exchange for slaves and African goods.
Exports
The total value of British exports also jumped more than five times. According to Table 1, the
annual average value of British exports increased from £ 5,870,000 (1701-1705) to
£32,740,000 (1795-1800).
In the eighteenth century the importance of Germany, especially Hamburg, as a
„Gateway‟ rose rapidly. While the value of exports to Germany was smaller than that to the
Netherlands which was the main destination for British exports at the beginning of the century,
Germany replaced the Netherlands as a center for commodity distribution after the 1780s. In
the years 1781-1785 the value of exports to Germany reached about £1,280,000, more than
£500,000 greater than the value of exports to the Netherlands. This rise of Germany was due
to the policy of neutrality of Hamburg from the third Anglo-Dutch War to the Napoleonic
War.17
More importantly, exports to the Atlantic world increased dramatically in the eighteenth
15
M. Bogucka, „The Role of Baltic Trade in European Development from the ⅩⅥth to the ⅩⅧth centuries‟,
Journal of European History, 9-1, 1980, p. 11; Toshiaki Tamaki, Hoppou Yoroppa no Shogyo to Keizai,
1550-1815nen [Commerce and Economy in Northern Europe, 1550-1815], Tokyo, 2008, Ch. 5. 16
E. K. Newman, Anglo-Hamburg Trade in the Late Seventeenth Century and Early Eighteenth Century,
unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1979. 17
Schumpeter, Trade Statistics, p. 17; Tamaki, Hoppou Yoroppa, p. 300. The reasons for the growth of
Hamburg are analyzed in detail in the following article: M. North, „Hamburg: “The Continent‟s Most
English City”‟, in M. North, From the North Sea to the Baltic: Essays in Commercial, Monetary and
Agrarian History, 1500-1800, Aldershot and Hampshire, 1996, Ch. 6.
32
century.18
Their value grew from only £850,000 (including the value of re-exports,
£320,000) to £13,900,000 (re-exports £1,290,000). A large amount of textiles such as
English woolens and East India cottons were exported or re-exported from British ports.
English woolen textiles shared about 30% of the total export value to British North America in
1772. On the other hand, German linens and East India cottons were popular in tropical areas
like Africa and the Caribbean islands.19
This point will be analyzed in the next chapter.
Also, British trade with Asia underwent expansion of exports as well as imports during
the first half of the eighteenth century. The value of exports to Asia increased from £750,000
in 1701 to £1,300,000 in 1750. The main export was bullion, especially silver, which made
up from 70% to 90%.20
At that time, the EIC as well as other European East India Companies carried vast
amounts of bullion to Asia to exchange for Asian goods like tea, pepper, spices and textiles.
According to calculations by Jan de Vries, the value of bullion re-exported to Asia was 16%
(£ 6,200,000) of the total imports into Europe in 1676-1700, which grew to 25%
(£156,000,000) in 1776-95. After peaking in 1726-50 (32%: £122,500,000), the value
gradually decreased. This downward movement was related to the British acquisition of power
to levy taxes in Bengal and Surat in the 1760s. After that the British did not need to bring
bullion to Asia any longer.21
Connection Atlantic and Asia
As noted above, the period of „Commercial revolution‟ saw remarkable expansion of the
volume and value of trade with the Atlantic world and Asia. American bullion flowed into Asia
via the route of the Cape of Good Hope, that of Manila-Acapulco, and that of the Baltic Sea
and the Levant. In turn, spices and pepper, cotton textiles, and tea were imported from Asia
and had a profound impact on European lifestyles.
Comparing their proportions of total imports in English international commerce in the
first half of the 1770s, the Atlantic took c. 40% and Asia 15%. This indicates that the
importance of the Atlantic trade was significantly large.22
As already mentioned, this was
18
The Atlantic world comprises the Americas, the British Caribbean islands, and Africa. 19
Price, „The Imperial Economy‟, pp. 87-88; Davis, „English Foreign Trade, 1700-74‟, p. 303; R. Davis,
The Industrial Revolution and British Overseas Trade, Leicester, 1979, pp. 95, 103. 20
Chaudhuri, The trading world of Asia, pp. 507, 517. 21
J. de Vries, „Connection Europe and Asia: A Quantitative Analysis of the Cape-route Trade, 1497-1795‟,
in D. Flynn, et al. (eds.), Global Connections and Monetary History, 1470-1800, Aldershot, 2003, pp. 78-79. 22
Schumpeter, Trade Statistics, p. 18. The same trend is found in French international trade. The value of
imports from the Atlantic accounted for 40% of total imports, but Asia only 5%. This small proportion was
33
mainly due to the plantation based economy of the Caribbean islands and the Americas. It is
well-known that this economy was sustained by the tireless transmission of slaves from the
African coasts for more than three centuries. Thus the Atlantic slave trade was the crucial
factor in maintaining staple production in the early modern period: indeed Malachy
Postlethwayt called it „the Great Pillar‟.23
However, as I mentioned in Table 2, both the
volume and value of imports from Asia increased throughout the eighteenth century. In
particular, textiles of which Indian cotton goods made up the majority accounted for 60-70%
of the total in the first half of the century and 30-50% in the second.
As Beverly Lemire argues, the interaction between India and Europe in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries was inseparably linked to the shaping of fashion and the advent of
consumer markets for the early modern industrial ages, and Indian cottons played an
incomparably important role in providing European consumers with new tastes. Indian cottons
were consumed as clothing like gowns, waistcoats, and kerchiefs round the neck as well as
interior decoration such as cushions, coverlets, and drapes. These Asian goods attracted not
only the upper social class but the lower classes.24
A review of the French trade says „it is not
cheap […] it is fashion, and it is a certain vanity that makes the women of the lower classes so
curious about calicoes. Dressed in light or printed cottons, they think themselves no longer at
the same level of women of their social station […] they think themselves superior to their
social condition because ladies of quality too wear calicoes‟.25
In the early modern age, Indian cottons captured the world market from regions in the
Indian Ocean to Europe and the Americas, and their quality was regarded as the global
standard. Prior to the fifteenth century, Indian cottons acquired markets in East Asia, the
Western Pacific, and the China Seas, and maintained commercial routes via East Africa,
Central Asia, Persia, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean. For instance, they were
exchanged for pepper in Southeast Asia. On the other hand, they also played an important role
in the purchase of African slaves on the West African coasts in European commerce after the
due to defeat in Asian competition with Britain in the mid-eighteenth century. Nevertheless this trend shows
that the Atlantic trade was important for both Britain and France. de Vries, „Connection Europe and Asia‟, p.
93. 23
M. Postlethwayt, The African Trade, the Great Pillar and Support of the British Plantation Trade in
North America, London, 1745. 24
B. Lemire, „Revising the Historical Narrative: India, Europe, and the Cotton Trade, c. 1300-1800‟, in P.
Parthasarathi and G. Riello (eds.), The Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textiles, 1200-1850,
Oxford, 2009, pp.214-225. 25
Cited in G. Riello, „The Globalization of Cotton Textiles: Indian Cottons, Europe, and the Atlantic World,
1600-1850‟, in Parthasarathi and Riello, The Spinning World, pp. 266-267. Another good example can be
found in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670) by Molière. In this play the bourgeois Monsieur Jourdain, eager
to be a gentleman, shows off his calico in front of his teachers.
34
fifteenth century. Thus, prior to the eighteenth century, Indian textiles were sought-after
around the world, and were also without doubt „the first global commodity‟ in terms of
production, consumption, and exchange, and prepared the way for the „global consumer
markets for the modern industrial age‟.26
Also, East Indian textiles were closely related to the British Industrial Revolution. The
origin of the industrial revolution has been a controversial topic. For example, Joseph Inikori
explains it in terms of „Import Substitution Industrialization‟ and stresses the role of West
Africa in encouraging the international competitiveness of British textiles as compared with
East India cottons in the process.27
However, Maxine Berg focuses more upon social aspects
in her recent works. In early modern Europe, the import of Asian goods shaped a new
consumer society in which people pursued „luxury‟. This drove Europeans to augment their
knowledge of consumer markets and to begin to „imitate‟ Asian commodities. Moreover
British manufacturers could utilize the resources and markets of the British Empire and create
their own luxuries. This led to the industrial revolution in England.28
In either case it is clear
that the impact of Asian trade on the early modern European, especially British, economies
should not be neglected.
Ch. 2 Significance of East Indian Cottons in the Atlantic Slave Trade
1. Anglo-African Trade and East Indian Cottons, 1699-1808
The recent project of compiling a database of the Atlantic slave trade under the leadership of
David Eltis and David Richardson has shown that about 12.5 million slaves were shipped from
Africa in the years 1501-1867.29
The British share was approximately 25% over the whole
26
Lemire, „Revising the Historical Narrative‟, p. 226; P. Parthasarati and G. Riello, „Introduction: Cotton
Textiles and Global History‟, in The Spinning World, p. 2. 27
J. E. Inikori, Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England: A Study in International Trade and
Economic Development, Cambridge, 2002. Similar arguments may also be found in studies by Japanese
economic historians, for example, H. Kawakatsu, „Momen no Seihou Denpa: Ajianai Boueki kara Taiseiyou
Keizaiken e [Cotton Diffusion to the West: from Intra-Asian Trade to the Atlantic Economy]‟, The Waseda
journal of political science and economics, 270-2, 1982, pp. 100-135; M. Kawakita, Kogyoka no Rekishiteki
Zentei [Historical Conditions of British Industrialization: Empire and Gentlemen], Tokyo, 1983. 28
M. Berg, „In Pursuit of Luxury: Global History and British Consumer Goods in the Eighteenth Century‟,
Past and Present, 182, 2004, pp. 85-142. 29
The database is open to the public on the website. D. Eltis et al. (eds.), Voyages: the Trans-Atlantic Slave
Trade Database (hereafter TSTD), 2008 (http://www.slavevoyages.org/ accessed on 1st April 2009). See
also modified numbers, D. Eltis and D. Richardson, „A New Assessment of the Transatlantic Slave Trade‟,
in D. Eltis and D. Richardson (eds.), Extending the Frontiers: Essays on the New Transatlantic Slave Trade
Database, Yale, 2008, pp. 6-7.
35
period, though its shipments of slaves were almost equal to those of Brazil/Portugal, the
largest participant, in the eighteenth century. In the middle of the seventeenth century Britain
transported c. 30,000 slaves from Africa, and then underwent three major expansion phases
(1650s-1680s; c.1710-c.1730; 1740s-c.1770),30
which were related to changes of trade
organizations like the Royal African Company and to the emergence of new trading ports such
as Bristol and Liverpool. In the final decade of the eighteenth century British shipments of
African slaves grew to nearly 400,000.
No other European country experienced such an expansion in the Atlantic slave trade
during the period that Britain engaged in it. The Dutch carried about 30,000 slaves in the early
decades of the eighteenth century and marked 60,000 slaves at the peak of their trade (1760s).
The French slave trade also shipped under 30,000 slaves in the first decade of the eighteenth
century, but expanded this to nearly 300,000 slaves in the 1780s. However the French trade
dropped sharply to just over 70,000 in the next decade. Even the Portuguese did not maintain
their volume throughout the eighteenth century.31
Now we can ask the question once again.
Why did Britain grow so rapidly during that period? Why could the British purchase such vast
numbers of slaves in West Africa?
To answer this question, it is necessary to investigate the goods which were
exported/re-exported from British ports. In order to ascertain this, it is indispensable to survey
trade statistics such as Customs 3/17. Marion Johnson compiled the value of Anglo-African
trade from 1699 to 1808 based on Customs 3/17 per year/decade.32
According to Figure 1,
total imports from Africa remained at approximately the same level throughout the period,33
while total exports (including re-exports) made a great leap, especially from the
mid-eighteenth century. The value of total exports grew from around £900,000 at the
beginning of the eighteenth century to more than £10 million at the end of the century. This
trend coincided with the growth of the slave trade. Although the final decade saw a rise of
prices due to the French Revolution and the Napoleonic War, it is fair to state that British
exports continued to rise throughout the eighteenth century.34
30
D. Richardson, „The British empire and the Atlantic slave trade 1660-1807‟, in Marshall, The eighteenth
century, p. 443. 31
Eltis and Richardson, „A New Assessment‟, pp. 6-7. 32
Johnson, Anglo-African Trade in the Eighteenth Century. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Ryuto Shimada for
bringing a copy of the dataset from Leiden University. 33
The blue line of total imports in Figure 1 includes the value of ivory, gums, dyestuffs, foodstuffs, oils,
and so on. 34
Matsui, Sekai Shijo, p. 295.
36
Figure 1 Total British Exports to and Imports from Africa, 1699-1808
Source: Calculated from L. J. Touwen and P. K. Doom „Statistics on Anglo-African Trade,
1699-1808‟, in Johnson, Anglo-African Trade in the Eighteenth Century, p. 53.
Figure 2 illustrates the composition of commodities exported from Britain between 1699
and 1808. It is clear that textiles retained the largest proportion among articles for export.
Their value increased more than thirteen times from c. 570,000 pounds in 1699-1708 to c. 7.5
million pounds in 1799-1808. Apart from textiles, military goods, iron and steel, cowries, and
beads were exported to Africa as well.35
The figure shows that military goods, iron and steel,
and cowry shells shared about 20% of exports during that period, and that these values also
grew near ten times throughout the eighteenth century.
35
Beads were perhaps collected on the Mediterranean Sea. For example, William Davenport, a Liverpool
merchant, imported beads from Livorno, and re-exported them to Cameroon. See B. L. Anderson, „The
Lancashire bill system and its Liverpool practitioners: the case of a slave merchant‟, in W. H. Chaloner and
B. M. Ratcliffe (eds.), Trade and transport: essays in economic history in honour of T. M. Willan,
Manchester, 1977, pp. 59-97. Cowries were used as currency in West Africa. See J. Hogendorn and M.
Johnson, The Shell Money of the Slave Trade, Cambridge, 1986.
37
Figure 2 Composition of Exports from Britain to Africa, 1699-1808
Source: Calculated from Touwen and Doom „Statistics on Anglo-African Trade‟, pp. 52-60.
As Figure 3 shows, there were several characteristics of textile exports to Africa. First,
woolens shared the largest ratio at the beginning of the eighteenth century, but this ratio was
reduced to 20-30% after the 1720s. Second, British cottons made an appearance from the
middle of the century. This sudden emergence is related to the beginning of the industrial
revolution in Britain. Third and most important, East Indian textiles maintained their hold of
30-60% of exports throughout the 18th century. At their peak, Indian cotton piece goods
comprised c. 30% of total British exports to Africa. Their value grew more than 20 times from
£130,000 to more than £3,200,000 during the century.36
Even in the final phase of the
British slave trade the value of East Indian textiles exceeded that of English cottons. Indian
textiles were also the leading product in the French-African trade, and they shared about 40%
of the total exports to Africa in the late eighteenth century.37
36
L. J. Touwen and P. K. Doom, „Statistics on Anglo-African Trade 1699-1808‟, in Johnson, Anglo-African
Trade, pp. 54-55. 37
J. Tarrade, Le commerce colonial de la France à la fin de l'ancien régime: l'évolution du régime de
«l‟Exclusif» de 1763 à 1789, Tome 1, Paris, 1972, p. 125.
38
Figure 3 Composition of Textiles from Britain to Africa, 1699-1808
Source: Calculated from Touwen and Doom „Statistics on Anglo-African Trade‟, pp. 54-55.
However, Customs has some drawbacks. The volume and value calculated from it do not
represent the cases in which ships called at other ports before arriving at their final
destinations. Thus we have to state that the volume and value calculated from Customs should
be modified. In the early modern period, there were many ships which called at Dutch ports to
purchase goods subsequent destinations. Also, we can find evidence of voyages that passed by
the Canaries and Madeira on their way to Africa.38
Again, Customs does not show the
regional differences of the African coasts. For example, although textiles were not so
important in order to exchange for peppers, dyestuffs, and ivory on the Grain Coast or Sierra
Leone, they were indispensable for purchasing African slaves and gold on the Gold Coast and
in the Bight of Benin.39
Hence the figures derived from Customs should be carefully treated
38
Richardson calculated the number of ships that reached Africa via Madeira and Cape Verde, and modified
the data of Johnson upward. D. Richardson, „Cape Verde, Madeira and Britain‟s Trade to Africa, 1698-1740‟,
The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 22-1, 1994, pp. 1-15. 39
C. E. Kriger, „“Guinea Cloth” Production and Consumption of Cotton Textiles in West Africa before and
during the Atlantic Slave Trade‟, in Parthasarati and Riello, The Spinning World, p. 124. See also, P. D.
Curtin, Economic Change in Precolonial Africa: Senegambia in the Era of the Slave Trade, Madison, 1975;
D. Richardson, „West African Consumption Patterns and Their Influence on the Eighteenth-Century English
Slave Trade‟, in H. A. Gemery and J. S. Hogendorn, The Uncommon Market: Essays in the Economic
39
and need to be more or less upwardly adjusted.
Nevertheless, even if the volume of Indian cotton textiles appearing in the records of
Customs were upwardly revised, the fact that Indian cottons shared a leading role throughout
the eighteenth century would not change. Now we should pause and ask what kinds of Indian
cottons were imported into Africa. East Indian textiles comprised diverse fabrics: Calicoes,
Chintz, Guinea Stuffs, Nicanees, Photaes, Tapseils and others.40
These cloths were consumed
for protection of the body, but also for decoration and demonstration of prestige in West Africa.
In particular, unusual colors and designs were in demand.41
Moreover, there were local cotton
industries in West Africa. Recent anthropological studies show the possibility that East Indian
cottons complemented the local production of textiles in West Africa and that they also might
have stimulated new varieties of textile production.42
2. Activities of English Merchants
Existing studies of the Atlantic slave trade and global history have pointed out the importance
of East Indian cottons in that trade. Kenneth Pomeranz points out the importance of the East
Indian cottons in the British Atlantic slave trade by relying on the work of H. S. Klein.43
However, the detailed routes of commerce between Asia and Africa via Britain have yet to be
explored. In order to demonstrate the connections, I use here some sources of two British
merchants who engaged in the slave trade for part of their lives: Thomas Hall and Thomas
Lumley.44
By so doing, we can come to know the activity of the merchants and the detailed
linkage between commodities at that time. This will be helpful in deepening our understanding
of the intricate networks of early modern international trade.
Thomas Hall & Co.
Thomas Hall (1692-1748) was a merchant who worked in Ostend and London in the early
History of the Atlantic Slave Trade, New York and London, 1979, pp. 303-330. 40
S. B. Alpern, „What Africans got for their slaves: a master list of European trade goods‟, History in Africa,
2, 1995, pp. 6-11. 41
J. Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800, Cambridge, 1998, p. 50. 42
Kriger, „“Guinea Cloth”‟. 43
See, K. Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern Economy,
Princeton, 2000, p. 271; H. S. Klein, „Economic aspects of the eighteenth-century Atlantic slave trade‟, in J.
Tracy (ed.), The Rise of Merchant Empires: Long-Distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350-1750,
Cambridge, 1993, pp. 290-293. I should mention that Klein‟s argument on East India textiles in African
trade was also based on the statistics calculated by Johnson. 44
I owe this information to Prof. David Richardson.
40
eighteenth century. He was a captain, shipowner, commercial agent, and financier, and traded
with Continental Europe, China, and Latin America. Also, he was an influential person as a
contractor of shipping. In his old age, he had a country house and invested his money in
agricultural land like many other successful merchants. He continued to work hard until he
passed away in mid-century. His activities were typical of the merchants of the day in many
points.45
The conditions of his childhood are unknown. According to Conrad Gill, who wrote a
biography of Hall, the first record of him states that he was a purser on the Essex, permitted by
the EIC in 1716 and setting out on a voyage to Guangdong. This status was given by his
friends and the famous captain Richard Pinnel.46
After this voyage he experienced a turning point in his life. At that time the War of the
Spanish Succession ended and peace came to the Netherlands. There were attempts to promote
economic integration in the Low Countries through overseas trade. In particular, the Asian
trade attracted attention and there were increased ambitions to import spice, silks, tea, and
coffee. Under these circumstances, Hall was asked to engage in the trade with China in Ostend.
He went on board the Maison d‟Autriche, whose captain was James Naish, and went to
Guangdong in early 1719. Next year he came back to Ostend with Chinese goods and gold. In
1723 he again sailed to Guangdong as captain of the Marquis de Prié, and around the same
time as Senior Captain he commanded the voyage of the ship St. Joseph. However, this was
the last time trade tool place on the basis of private partnerships.47
In 1725 Hall decided to go back to London and work as a merchant and shipowner, not as
captain. At that time, he used bills of exchange for his transactions. Most of these bills were
drawn either on Antwerp or on London. Jacques de Pret in Antwerp and Pinnel in London
received Hall‟s bills and might probably have disposed of them to one of the financial houses.
Hall expected the success of his business in his mother country. So he bought stock in the
Bank of England and the South Sea Company and invested in some English vessels. His stock
in the Bank of England reached £10,000 at the end of 1725 and he purchased a further
£2,000 worth again ten months later.48
In the beginning of his commercial activities in London, he was condemned by the EIC
and the government for his engagement in trade in Ostend, and had to pay them fines of
£1,400 and £700 respectively. Through this procedure, Hall settled with them, and was able
45
Gill, Merchants and Mariners, p. 11. 46
Gill, Merchants and Mariners, pp. 12-13. 47
In the same year the Ostend East India Company was founded. It was aimed to trade with Asia and Africa
on the basis of Antwerp capitals. The company was the bearer of Asian trade until its dissolution in 1731. 48
Gill, Merchants and Mariners, pp. 41-42.
41
to launch his business in England. Also, at about the same time, he became engaged to and
married Mary Hallet, whose father was a Member of Parliament, and rented a large house in
Great Ormond Street in the west of the City.49
In England, Hall was involved with two businesses: shipping and the tea trade. As a
ship‟s husband, he organized the associates who provided the necessary capital to build ships.
He also made arrangements for ship building, then appointed captains, officers and crew. In
addition, he paid wages, and arranged insurance. Furthermore, his engagement with the tea
trade in Europe was based on a network of merchants. When he was in Ostend, he associated
with Jacob Senserf in Rotterdam, and J. Anthony Crop, Dieterick Smith, and Van Berchem in
Amsterdam. In addition to these merchants in the Netherlands, Lastrop Pietersoon was also a
partner of Hall in Hamburg. Smith was an especially important person for Hall. Hall imported
Dutch linens from Smith50
and sold him coffee from Java and other places.51
Some of them
were re-exported to Wichman Lastrope in Hamburg via Smith.52
Hall kept in touch with
Smith at 7- to 10-day intervals. Since Smith had some friends who were leading officials of
the Dutch East India Company (VOC), he could collect and supply inside information of great
value in forecasting prices.53
China (the Qing dynasty) traded with European countries. The concern of the European
countries was Chinese tea. Tea producers in China increased production to keep up with
European demand. As a result, more tea was imported into European markets, and provided
benefits for stockholders of companies, wholesalers and retailers. However the Netherlands
was an exception, because Dutch merchants fell behind those of other countries in the
Hamburg market, and had few markets except their own domestic ones. In the face of this
situation, Hall and many other merchants gave up dealing in tea.54
While Hall was engaged in the tea trade, he also launched an Atlantic trade. Like his East
India trade, this had a lot to do with Pinnel. The character of the Atlantic trade at that period
was that ships called at the Dutch ports of Rotterdam or Amsterdam in order to purchase
cargoes for African trade. For example, the Court of Directors of the South Sea Company
records that sending „the ships Mermaid and Essex designed for Angola & Buenos Ayres […]
to Holland to take in the goods wanting to compleat their Cargoes‟.55
The reason for calling at
49
Gill, Merchants and Mariners, pp. 42-45. 50
C 103/131: Invoice of Thomas Hall, 20th Sep. 1729, The National Archives of the UK (hereinafter TNA). 51
C 103/131: Invoice of Thomas Hall, 30th Jun. 1732, TNA; C 103/131: Account of Thomas Hall, 19th Feb.
1732, TNA; C 103/131: Invoice of Thomas Hall, 4th Aug. 1733, TNA. 52
C 103/133: Account of Wichman Lastrope in Hamburg, 4th Apr. 1730, TNA. 53
Gill, Merchants and Mariners, pp. 52-55. 54
Gill, Merchants and Mariners, pp. 56-59. 55
Add. Mss. 25503, 21st Feb. 1729, p. 385, The British Library.
42
Holland was that „Indian cottons were cheaper there than they were in England; Linens from
Germany were readily available; and there were large stocks of firearms of the types most
favoured in Africa‟.56
Although the origin of this style of trade remains unknown, similar
information can be found in documents of the late 1710s.57
Table 3 List of Goods Purchased by the Mermaid (in Rotterdam, 13th May 1732)
Sletias 46 Cases 6,478 (2,300 pieces)
Calico 4 Cases 1,006 (100 pieces)
Sletias 34 Cases 5,021 (1,700 pieces)
Britannia (Long) 1 Case 235 (55 pieces)
Britannia (Short) 4 Cases 436 (218 pieces)
Linen (Stripe) 5 Cases 1,000 (100 pieces)
Britannia (Long) 6 Cases 1,757 (601 pieces)
Britannia (Short) 20 Cases 3,690 (1,591 pieces)
Cambric 14 Cases 2,080 (517 pieces)
Linen 2 Packs 1,038 (14 pieces)
Totals (including others and charges) 23,335
Source: C 103/130: Invoice of Thomas Hall from Senserf & Co. , Rotterdam, 13th May,
1732, TNA.
Table 3 illustrates the kind of goods Hall bought in Rotterdam. The Mermaid, whose
captain was John Butler, set off from London at the end of March 1732. The table shows that
Hall purchased various textiles, especially linen textiles called Sletias.58
We can see that
linens, probably made in Continental Europe, took up the largest part of the products
purchased in Rotterdam. In terms of quantity the total volume of linens reached 4,000 pieces
and its value was more than ten times as much as the East Indian pieces. This evidence may
suggest that the British Atlantic trade more or less depended upon the commercial relationship
56
Gill, Merchants and Mariners, p. 77. 57
Letter from Richard Harris to the Secretary of the Board of Trade (?), London, 21st Sep. 1719, in E.
Donnan (ed.), Documents illustrative of the history of the slave trade to America, vol. 2 (the eighteenth
century), Washington D. C., 1931, pp. 241-242. 58
Sletias was linen originally produced in Silesia. In 1593-1607, the Dutch shipped about 30 million yards
of Sletias to the Gold Coast and it was viewed as “the most popular cloth”. Alpern, „What Africans got for
their slaves‟, p. 9.
43
with Continental Europe in those days.59
During the period Hall engaged in the Atlantic trade,
Northwest Europe was going through a relatively stable phase, so that British merchants might
easily trade with their counterparts in Continental Europe.
Thomas Lumley & Co.
Thomas Lumley was also a merchant in London from the late eighteenth century to the
nineteenth century. As far as I can ascertain from his documents in the National Archives, UK,
his birth and infancy remain obscure. However, the London Directory shows us that he was
working as a Warehouseman in Gutter Lane in the City of London around 1800.60
He bought
East India cottons directly from the EIC regularly61
and sold them on to merchants in London,
Liverpool, Dover, Guernsey and other places. Most of those merchants were engaged in the
slave trade, and Lumley also invested in the trade eight times in 1803-1808.62
Hence, by
following his activities, we can unravel the detailed routes of cotton goods from India to
Africa.
The Appendix is based on his Journal and TSTD. Although this chart could no doubt be
improved by using other sources, we can obtain a lot of information about his daily
transactions and each merchant‟s trade. We also can notice that some merchants in Liverpool
bought East Indian goods from Lumley and shipped them to West Africa to exchange for
African slaves. Jonathan Ratcliff, George Case, James Brown, Thomas Huson, Charles
Fairclough, John and James Aspinall, Thomas and Samuel Hinde, and John Bolton, who were
all merchants in Liverpool, bought far more Indian textiles than other merchants.63
From the table of the Appendix, we can infer that Lumley played an important role in
supporting Liverpool‟s slave trade at that time.64
Lumley was requested to sell East Indian
cottons by these merchants. For example, a letter written by Fairclough says that Lumley
supplied the Polly, in which Fairclough invested, with Indian goods on 25th November and 4th
59
Newman, Anglo-Hamburg Trade, p. 292. 60
cf. London Directory (Kent‟s Directory, 1801-1808). 61
C 114/155: Cash Book, Jan. 1801-Mar. 1803, TNA. 62
According to TSTD, Lumley invested in the Bedford (three times), the Betsey, the Frederick (twice), and
the Harriott (twice). 63
The names of ships owned by Liverpool merchants are written in his Journal, so we can connect this
information with TSTD. 64
Liverpool merchants also often called at the Isle of Man which was known as a tax-free haven for goods
until the mid-eighteenth century. They purchased East Indian textiles, cowrie shells, beads, arms, iron goods,
and so forth from Manx merchants who imported them from Holland. See K. Morgan, „Liverpool‟s
Dominance in the British Slave Trade, 1740-1807‟, in D. Richardson, S. Schwarz, and A. Tibbeles (eds.),
Liverpool and Transatlantic Slavery, Liverpool, pp. 21-22.
44
December 1799.65
In the early 1800s Lumley was involved with about 30 percent of voyages
from Liverpool to Bonny in the Bight of Biafra, which was the largest trading port for the
Liverpool slave trade in the second half of the eighteenth century.66
The Appendix shows that
7 of 26 voyages (27%) which sailed from Liverpool to Bonny were indirectly sustained by
Lumley in 1801; 6 of 22 voyages (27%) in 1802; and 2 of 8 voyages (25%) in 1803. Lumley
supplied each ship with more 2,500 pounds of Indian textiles, and they bought around 300
slaves in West Africa. This may suggest that the growth of the Liverpool slave trade was
dependent upon commercial networks with London, not only financial ones.67
Now let us examine a detailed example of Lumley‟s slave trade. As far as I know, the
reason why he began to invest in the slave trade is unclear, but probably he stored information
through his transactions with other merchants. The first voyage in which he invested was that
of the Bedford in 1803-1804. During all his voyages he, as a vessel owner, remained in
London, and consigned the shipping of goods to captains.68
Captains were notified of the
basic details of their voyages in advance by “Instructions”, and there was a postal network
through which they could receive new Instructions in the West Indies. In Lumley‟s case, the
tonnages of the ships were from 200 to 280, the crews were from London, other areas in
England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Germany, Sweden, Italy, United States, and Africa. They
consisted of captain, first mate, second mate, third mate, surgeon, carpenter, cooper, cook, and
many seamen. Wages depended on status and age.
The first voyage of the Bedford was aimed at purchasing goods and gold dust at Accra on
the Gold Coast, and 225 African slaves and African products at the River Congo on the coast
of Angola. The merchandise shipped to Africa chiefly comprised East Indian goods and British
goods such as muskets, and was consigned to Captain William B. Lane from Ireland. The total
value of the merchandise loaded in London reached about £5,500 (except for charges), and
the goods were insured. They were separately packed in puncheons, bales, or cases. Most of
65
C 114/2: Letter from Charles Fairclough to Thomas Lumley, London, 7th Mar. 1801. The Indian goods
sold by Lumley were probably shipped from Liverpool to Africa, and then the Polly sailed to Kingston with
295 slaves, Redwood, and ivory. The ship was loaded with many cargoes such as 9 hogsheads of sugar, 95
tons bar wood, and 779 bags of cottons, and departed from Jamaica on 27th January 1801. BT 6/235: Trade
Statistics, Jamaica, 1799-1801, TNA; TSTD, Voyage 83137. 66
See Lovejoy and Richardson, „“This Horrid Hole”‟. 67
B. L. Anderson, „The Lancashire bill system and its Liverpool practitioners: the case of a slave merchant‟,
in W. H. Chaloner and B. M. Ratcliffe (eds.), Trade and transport: essays in economic history in honour of T.
M. Willan, Manchester, 1977, pp. 59-97. Regarding the financial network, Mina Ishizu explores the linkage
between local banks and the Liverpool Atlantic trade. See M. Ishizu, „Local finance and overseas trade
during the Industrial Revolution: an examination of the financial arrangements of a Liverpool merchant‟,
paper for the Economic History Society Annual Conference, University of Reading, March 2006. 68
This kind of trading can be considered common among merchants of the day. Price, „What did Merchants
do?‟.
45
them were intended to buy slaves and African produce. Also, there were some bags of East
Indian rice and beans for slave provisions. The invoice shows that East Indian cottons made up
the overwhelming majority of consigned goods (c. 80%: 3,484 pieces, £3,887) in this case.
In particular, Bejutapauts (692 pieces, £605), Chintz (573 pieces, £817), Bafts (456 pieces,
£912), and Nicanees (400 pieces, £265) were the main products, followed by alcoholic
drinks like brandy and wine, and muskets.69
The Bedford set off from London on this first voyage on 4th May 1803. After the
purchase of 246 slaves and some ivories in Africa, the ship sailed to and arrived in Kingston
on 28th November. While slaves were sold there, 48 tons of logwoods and fustick, 46 planks
of mahogany, 13,654 pounds of coffee, 15 tons of Nicaragua wood, and 2 casks of copper
were loaded on the ship. It left for London on 30th March 1804.70
A similar style of trade can
be found in the second and third voyages of the Bedford.71
I speculate that since the period when Lumley was trading saw the French Revolution and
Napoleonic Wars in Europe, it might have been difficult for him to trade with merchants in
Continental Europe, unlike in the earlier time of Hall. Because French privateers seized enemy
ships in the English Channel in wartime, there was a greater risk in visiting ports in
Continental Europe. In addition, Dutch imports of East Indian textiles probably stopped at the
end of 1799 when the VOC went into liquidation.72
Thus the importance of British ships
calling at Continental Europe before sailing to Africa might have decreased during that period,
and British merchants might have been more or less compelled to collect goods for themselves.
That point should be explored in more detail.
Conclusion
To wind up this paper, I summarize the result of the discussion once again. In order to
understand the growth of the British Atlantic slave trade, I first located it in the context of
69
C 114/158: Invoice of Thomas Lumley & John Ramsden, London, 5th Mar. 1803, TNA. 70
When the Bedford arrived in Kingston, the trade statistics of Jamaica counted 221 slaves and 13 ivories.
CO 142/21: Shipping Returns, Jamaica, 1801-1804, pp. 100, 146, TNA; TSTD, Voyage id=80455, Bedford
(1803). 71
Regarding the second voyage of the Bedford, see C 114/158: Invoice of Thomas Lumley & Co., London,
1st Aug. 1804, TNA; C 114/158: Manifest of Bedford 2nd Voyage, TNA; CO 142/42: Shipping Returns,
Jamaica, 1804-1807, p. 34, TNA; TSTD, Voyage id=80456, Bedford (1805). See also for the third voyage of
the Bedford, C 114/158: Invoice of Thomas Lumley & Co., London, 1st Jul. 1806, TNA; C 114/158:
Account of Thomas Lumley & Co., London, 1806-1807, TNA; C 114/158: Sales Records of Thomas
Lumley & Co., London, 1807, TNA; C 114/158: Manifest of Bedford 3rd Voyage, TNA; CO 142/24:
Shipping Returns, Jamaica, 1804-1807, p. 141; TSTD, Voyage id=80457, Bedford (1807). 72
Riello, „The Globalization of Cotton Textiles‟, p. 265.
46
early modern international trade and pointed out that the slave trade expanded in parallel with
other trade of the day. Then I focused on East Indian cottons, the most important goods in
promoting the Atlantic slave trade, and tried to depict some trading routes based on original
sources of English merchants. As a result, I reach the conclusion that the growth of the British
Atlantic slave trade should be considered from a global perspective, especially in its linkage
with Asia.73
Such a perspective would contribute to deepening our understanding of the
integration of eighteenth-century global connections via money, goods, and migrations.
73
In the context of British imperial history, Peter Marshall has proposed such a wider perspective to figure
out the “British Empires” during the transition period. See P. J. Marshall, „The First and Second British
Empires: A Question of Demarcation‟, History, 29, 1964, pp. 13-23; P. J. Marshall, The Making and
Unmaking of the Empires: Britain, India, and America c. 1750-1783, Oxford, 2005.
47
1801
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uly
2
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n R
ogers &
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ns
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Cham
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hom
as P
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id: 80839
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y &
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s &
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r &
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s &
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s &
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r &
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s &
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r &
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William
& T
hom
as P
ary
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as H
inde
cf.
transaction o
n J
une 3
0
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Cham
bers &
Co.
Charle
s &
John W
hele
r &
Co.
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n H
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id: 81533
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s&
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r &
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s &
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heele
r &
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Thom
as H
inde
id: 81039
id: 83138
George C
ase &
Co.
id: 80364
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tte S
e S
erre
William
& T
hom
as P
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Cott
ons &
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Charle
s &
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hele
r &
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John B
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Thom
as G
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J.
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rade
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n H
uson &
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es A
spin
all
id: 83764
id: 82780
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am
sden
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Gold
sm
id S
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Danie
ls
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id: 83217
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n &
Rankin
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id: 80025
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am
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George C
ase &
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n H
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an R
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liff &
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William
Sla
ck &
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orla
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Joseph C
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A &
P C
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cip
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lace o
f
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ve P
urchase
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Railto
n &
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gs
Hym
en C
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ase &
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s F
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s R
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s o
f E
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as L
um
ley &
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ld P
resto
n, W
inder
& C
o.
dir
ect
trade w
ith W
est
India
(?)
id: 83250
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wn R
ogers
& B
row
ns
Georg
e C
ase &
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id: 82048
Jam
es B
olland
Joseph C
ohen &
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Rip
ley &
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ier
& C
o.
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el Jam
es &
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id: 82249
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es A
llen
J.
De P
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wn R
ogers
& B
row
ns
Taylo
r, H
ughan &
Renny
id: 83863
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Jam
es P
arr
id: 81116
John B
olton
id: 81652
Max R
iddell
Nic
hola
s &
Robert
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kers
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es &
John W
hele
r &
Co.
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n &
Rankin
gs
Sarg
ent
Cham
bers
& C
o.
John B
olton
cf.
tra
nsaction o
n J
uly
16
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
Nic
hola
s C
arl
isle
& C
o.
id: 81849 *
ow
ner:
Saunders
Thom
as &
Robert
Wilson
L.
B.
Cohen
Thom
as M
ars
hall
Thom
as L
um
ley &
Co.
Charl
es &
John W
hele
r &
Co.
Rip
ley &
Riv
ier
& C
o.
Sam
uel M
cD
ow
al &
Co.
William
Aspin
all
id: 84030
Sam
uel H
inde &
Co.
id: 80125
Charl
es &
John W
hele
r &
Co.
id: 84103
Nath
anie
l M
cG
hie
Railto
n &
Rankin
gs
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
J.
De P
rade
cf.
tra
nsaction o
n S
epte
mber
16
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
William
Aspin
all
cf.
tra
nsaction o
n S
epte
mber
16
Joseph P
orl
al &
Co.
William
Aspin
all
Jacob S
am
uels
Rip
ley &
Riv
ier
& C
o.
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Robert
Bent
Georg
e C
ase &
Co.
cf.
tra
nsaction o
n O
cto
ber
16
John &
Georg
e S
cott
Thom
as L
um
ley &
Co.
Sam
uel H
inde &
Co.
Georg
e C
ase &
Co.
id: 80401
Thom
as L
um
ley &
Co.
John &
Georg
e S
cott
Railto
n &
Rankin
gs
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
John &
Georg
e S
cott
Thom
as L
um
ley &
Co.
49
69.
.
6L
iverp
ool
Young W
illiam
814.1
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6
10
68.1
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14.
5.
35.
.
16
Liv
erp
ool
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527.
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D
ec.
26
Gold
Coast
209
Dem
era
ra
17
29.
2.
9
24
69.
.
25
48.
6.
2.
8.
504.
7.
6
29
London
Auro
ra2,3
28.
1.
61802.
Jan.
17
Gold
Coast
308
Kin
gsto
n
Dec.
18
6.
8.
31
9.
9.
1.
.
Jan.
25
London
122.1
9.
London
390.
6.
30
268.
6.
Feb.
80.
5.
11
0.1
6.
8
15
London
94.
3.
24
London
238.
8.
26
188.
6.
Mar.
3L
ondon
Dia
na
2,1
27.1
6.
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ar.
11
unknow
n237
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nada
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Backhouse
54.
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ar.
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old
Coast
220
St.
Vin
cent
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iverp
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ncess A
melia
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pr.
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est
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al A
fric
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ix
10
115.
.
15
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18
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erp
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237.1
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6A
pr.
29
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bar
268
St.
Thom
as(
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h)
27
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leJane
537.1
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pr.
10
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Coast
222
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aic
a
29
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6
Apr.
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6
23
Liv
erp
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5.
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27
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iverp
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ark
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ay.
20
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128
St.
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cent
9.
6.
1
28
52.1
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Jun.
3L
iverp
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ne
1,5
84.
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1B
onny
395
Dem
era
ra
Liv
erp
ool
70.1
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1.
14
London
178.1
2.
6
34.1
9.
15
London
997.1
3.
Liv
erp
ool
Expeditio
n696.1
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0C
am
ero
ons
285
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inia
c
23
216.
.
187.
1.
91.1
6.
So
urce
: C
114/1
54: Journ
al of
Thom
as L
um
ley &
Co., 1
801, T
NA
; T
ST
D.
1802
A.
Gold
sm
id S
on &
D.
Ele
ason
Bro
wn R
ogers
& R
ogers
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
Capta
in J
ohn L
ivin
gsto
ne
Robert
Bent
John &
Jam
es P
arr
id: 81329
John B
olton
sam
e a
bove?
Bri
ggs(?
)
Ric
hard
Miles &
Co.
William
s
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
John B
olton
id: 82923
Capta
in J
ohn L
ivin
gsto
ne
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
John &
Jam
es A
spin
all
id: 81946
L.
B.
Cohen
Novis
Sw
anzy &
Hutt
on
Capta
in S
tark
ey
Sam
uel P
ott
er
& C
o.
Jam
es W
orr
all &
Co.
id: 83387
Ric
hard
Miles &
Co.
id: 82280
Bro
wn H
uson &
Co.
id: 83218
J.
M.
Rusels
heim
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Joseph P
orl
al &
Co.
Ric
hard
Miles &
Co.
id: 81018
Ric
hard
Miles &
Co.
id: 80419
*ow
ner:
J.
Miles
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
Hym
en C
ohen &
Co
Ale
xander
Rid
dell
Hym
en C
ohen &
Co
Sam
uel P
ott
er
& C
o.
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Pri
ncip
al P
lace o
f
Sla
ve P
urc
hase
Tota
l S
laves
em
bark
ed
Pri
ncip
al P
lace o
f
Sla
ve L
andin
gO
thers
(TS
TD
id, etc
.)
Hym
en C
ohen &
Co
Date
of
Sale
Custo
mer(
s)
City
Nam
e o
f V
essel
Valu
e o
f
Sale
s(£
s.d
.)
Date
Voyage
began
Tota
l129 r
ecord
s o
f tr
ansactions
Liv
erp
ool: 3
4-(
26%
)58,9
14.1
8.
9
Sarg
ent
Cham
bers
& C
o.
Joseph P
orl
al &
Co.
Burt
on S
pencer
& C
o.
Moses S
am
uels
Bonny: 7-
Liv
erp
ool-
Bonny: 7/2
6 (
27%
)
Ric
hard
Miles &
Co.
id: 80390
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
Rip
ley &
Riv
ier
& C
o.
Bro
wn R
ogers
& B
row
ns
Sarg
ent
Cham
bers
& C
o.
Sam
uel M
cD
ow
al &
Co.
id: 80307
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
William
Aspin
all
cf.
tra
nsaction o
n S
epte
mber
30
S.
B.
Cohen
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Bro
wn R
ogers
& B
row
ns
50
25
Liv
erp
ool
320.1
4.
29
130.
.
30
126.
.
19.
.
9.
7.
6
Jul. 1
63.
2.
442.1
0.
7303.
3.
6
Afr
ican
2,9
98.
6.
8L
iverp
ool
Dilig
ent
2,3
51.1
6.
6A
ug.
18
Bonny
366
St.
Vin
cent
10
Liv
erp
ool
Genera
l A
berc
rom
bie
4,8
15.1
9.
A
ug.
15
West
Centr
al A
fric
a377
St.
Cro
ix
13
London
Iris
4,3
80.
7.1
0Jul. 2
0unknow
n398
St.
Vin
cent
14
18.
1.
3
15
London
111.
.
17
London
Kerr
ie244.
8.
Jul. 2
5unknow
n188
Jam
aic
a
20
London
86.1
7.
6
253.
5.
12.1
2.
26
7.1
7.
6
1,0
56.
9.
6
31
62.
5.
7.
6.
195.
6.
11.
.
5.
5.
112.
.
234.1
3.
36.
.
Aug.
4135.
3.
9
6823.1
5.
2.1
2.
6
11
123.1
5.
189.1
0.
8
12
6.
.
London
346.
5.
2
14
Liv
erp
ool
354.1
6.
16
Liv
erp
ool
Pru
dence
499.
5.
6S
ep.
5unknow
n273
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era
ra
20
128.1
2.
6
21
356.1
0.
24
247.
6.
4
26
6.
3.
580.1
9.
3
Sep.
6360.
.
9L
iverp
ool
Westm
ore
land
9,5
95.
1.
9O
ct.
14
Gold
Coast
166
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nid
ad
209.
5.
13
171.
.
118.
.
16
20.
5.
Liv
erp
ool
Kin
gsm
ill
3,4
00.
0.
6O
ct.
15
Bonny
439
Baham
as
502.1
0.
18
Liv
erp
ool
Thom
as
1,7
43.
2.
6O
ct.
11
Bonny
311
Tri
nid
ad
Liv
erp
ool
Win
dsor
Castle
280.
1.
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ct.
13
unknow
n321
St.
Thom
as(
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h)
21
436.1
3.
4
Liv
erp
ool
Westm
ore
land
411.1
6.
22
65.
.
24
65.
2.
Liv
erp
ool
Earl
of
Liv
erp
ool
645.
7.
O
ct.
24
unknow
nS
uri
nam
e(
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h)
25
London
Sovere
ign
4,7
65.1
3.
N
ov.
7B
onny
355
Tri
nid
ad
27
Liv
erp
ool
Thom
as
608.
8.
Bro
wn C
ass &
Co.
id: 83574
John &
Jam
es A
spin
all
cf.
tra
nsaction o
n S
epte
mber
18
Charl
es &
John W
hele
r &
Co.
Robert
Hum
e
John &
Jam
es P
arr
id: 81117
Georg
e C
ase &
Co.
id: 84079
Thom
as L
um
ley &
Co.
Ogle
& W
alton
cf.
tra
nsaction o
n S
epte
mber
9
William
Forb
es
id: 82169
Joseph P
orl
al &
Co.
John &
Jam
es A
spin
all
id: 83765
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
A &
P C
ohen
Railto
n &
Rankin
gs
Ogle
& W
alton
id:8
4007
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Sarg
ent
Cham
bers
& C
o.
J.
De P
rade
John &
Jam
es P
arr
id: 83254
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
Hym
en C
ohen &
Co
P.
W.
Bra
ncker
id: 80162(
?)
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
Sarg
ent
Cham
bers
& C
o.
Doxat
& D
uett
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
John E
wbank
Novis
Sw
anzy &
Hutt
on
Thom
as B
ennet
Gra
y F
reem
an
Joseph P
orl
al &
Co.
A &
P C
ohen
Rip
ley &
Riv
ier
& C
o.
M.
De L
onguem
arr
C &
W.
Bin
gle
y
Hym
en C
ohen &
Co
Joseph P
orl
al &
Co.
Rip
ley &
Riv
ier
& C
o.
Charl
es &
John W
hele
r &
Co.
Ale
xander
Rid
dell
Ric
hard
Miles &
Co.
id: 82125
Sam
uel &
William
Hin
de
id: 81040
John T
hom
as &
Co.
id: 81569
Nic
hola
s C
arl
isle
& C
o.
id: 81920
Rip
ley &
Riv
ier
& C
o.
P.
J.
Dennis
M.
De L
onguem
arr
*part
ners
hip
with R
ivie
r ?
Rip
ley &
Riv
ier
& C
o.
J.
De P
rade
Sarg
ent
Cham
bers
& C
o.
John&
Jam
es P
arr
cf.
tra
nsaction o
n J
uly
10
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
51
536.1
1.
Oct.
14
514.
2.
3
84.
.
15
112.1
0.
21
Liv
erp
ool
Active
3,2
66.
9.
6N
ov.
27
West
Centr
al A
fric
a310
Tobago
Liv
erp
ool
23.1
3.
6
9.
.
31.1
6.
30.
8.
3
22
677.
1.
9
23
3.1
7.
11.
.
26
Liv
erp
ool
Lord
Sain
t V
incent
2,2
89.1
7.
N
ov.
23
29
77.1
7.
77.
0.
8
Nov.
2125.
3.
8136.
.
180.1
3.
2
57.1
0.
6
18.
4.
6
4.1
0.
10
202.
2.
7.1
0.
17
8.1
5.
Dec.
2145.
.
4L
iverp
ool
13.1
3.
10
261.
8.
18
264.1
6.
6
27
1,0
10.1
7.1
0
30
1.1
7.
4
6.1
6.
31
5.
.
Jan.
5193.
6.
8
London
Sir
W.
Dougla
s670.
6.
9F
eb.
5W
est
Centr
al A
fric
a310
Georg
ia
14
Liv
erp
ool
1.
5.
6
19
201.
.
15.1
7.
6
Feb.
8L
iverp
ool
Agre
eable
979.1
3.
M
ar.
8unknow
n310
Basse-T
err
e
9206.
5.
225.
.
10
38.
.
26
6.1
7.
6
Mar.
5L
ondon
Bedfo
rd4,4
83.1
9.
6M
ay.
4C
ongo R
iver
246
Kin
gsto
n
24
255.
1.
6
4.
5.
8
25
1.
4.
26
89.1
5.
8
29
Liv
erp
ool
Auro
ra908.
1.
6A
pr.
28
unknow
n291
Kin
gsto
n
31
21.1
7.
6
So
urce
: C
114/1
54: Journ
al of
Thom
as L
um
ley &
Co., 1
802, T
NA
; T
ST
D.
1803
Sarg
ent
Cham
bers
& C
o.
Georg
e C
ase &
Co.
id: 80402
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Railto
n &
Rankin
gs
A.
Gold
sm
id S
on &
D.
Ele
ason
Bro
wn R
ogers
& C
o.
Sarg
ent
Cham
bers
& C
o.
Rip
ly M
iles &
Co.
John R
am
sden
id: 80455
*L
um
ley's
part
ner
Sam
uel &
William
Hin
de
id: 80126
Gra
y F
reem
an &
Co.
Sarg
ent
Cham
bers
& C
o.
Ogle
& W
alton
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
John E
wbank
Pri
ncip
al P
lace o
f
Sla
ve L
andin
gO
thers
(TS
TD
id, etc
.)
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Cald
cle
ugh B
oyd &
Reid
id: 83510
Liv
erp
ool-
Bonny: 5-/
22(2
3%
)
Date
of
Sale
Custo
mer(
s)
City
Nam
e o
f V
essel
Valu
e o
f
Sale
s(£
s.d
.)
Date
Voyage
began
Pri
ncip
al P
lace o
f
Sla
ve P
urc
hase
Tota
l S
laves
em
bark
ed
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
Tota
l125 r
ecord
s o
f tr
ansactions
Liv
erp
ool: 2
3-(
18%
)68,8
08.1
6.
B
onny: 6-
Callett
& T
hom
sett
Thom
as D
ixon
A &
P C
ohen
William
Aspin
all
John F
indle
y
Rig
oud B
ett
ye &
Co.
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
William
& T
hom
as P
ary
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Jam
es A
llen
Sarg
ent
Cham
bers
& C
o.
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Robie
chon &
Mounie
n
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Bro
wn R
ogers
& B
row
ns
L.
B.
Cohen
Benja
min
Devaynes
id: 82358
Jam
es A
llen
Sarg
ent
Cham
bers
& C
o.
Cass &
Bro
wn
Georg
e C
ase &
Co.
id: 80026
B.
Maw
dsle
ycf.
id: 80026 (
join
t in
vention ?
)
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Sarg
ent
Cham
bers
& C
o.
Bro
wn R
ogers
& B
row
ns
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Rip
ley &
Riv
ier
& C
o.
52
Apr.
179.1
0.
16
125.
8.
25
294.
2.
3
26
Liv
erp
ool
Nim
ble
232.
5.
6M
ay.
26
unknow
n286
St.
Thom
as(
Dutc
h)
May.
6L
iverp
ool
Dilig
ent
1,4
66.
5.
Jun.
18
Bonny
366
Dem
era
ra
Jun.
6264.
5.
19
34.
.
21
nill(
?)
23
London
John a
nd J
am
es
2,5
31.1
6.
6Jul. 1
3B
onny
439
Kin
gsto
n
Jul. 1
188.
.
12
50.
8.
13
66.1
1.
9
58.
3.
9
26
103.1
0.
49.
7.
6
27
128.
7.
6
30
London
Port
au P
rince
1,3
74.
8.
6S
ep.
7B
onny
433
Kin
gsto
n
Sep.
9130.
7.
6
Liv
erp
ool
Mari
a1,7
25.1
2.
O
ct.
6B
onny
395
Havana
Liv
erp
ool
Thom
as
1,5
07.
1.
6O
ct.
6unknow
n307
Havana
16
Liv
erp
ool
Mari
a611.
7.
6
Liv
erp
ool
Thom
as
519.
8.
6
30.
.
Allis
on
2,2
07.1
5.
Dilig
ent
225.
8.
26
11.
3.
4
Oct.
12
6.
.
Nov.
1504.
.
14
6.
.
16
99.
.
17
Liv
erp
ool
Beaver
1,4
10.1
4.
6D
ec.
20
310
Dec.
3330.
.
Laure
l1804.
Feb.1
3W
est
Centr
al A
fric
a225
Dem
era
ra
Ura
nia
1804.
Feb.1
3W
est
Centr
al A
fric
a208
Dem
era
ra
10
359.1
4.
6
12
88.
8.
13
42.
.
60.
.
14
4.
9.
4
Liv
erp
ool
103.
9.
6
15
Liv
erp
ool
120.
6.
6
26
46.
.
29
Liv
erp
ool
153.1
7.
6
31
London
Eagle
8,6
20.1
2.
1804.
Feb.1
captu
red
47.
8.
9
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Ale
xander
Rid
dle
Burt
on S
pencer
& C
o.
Georg
e C
ase &
Co.
id: 82949
William
& S
am
uel H
inde
id: 81041
Bro
wn C
ass
Jam
es A
llen
John W
heele
r &
Co.
Robert
Bent
id: 82066
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
A.
Gold
sm
id S
on &
D.
Ele
ason
Charl
es &
John W
heele
r
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Joseph C
ohen &
Co.
Robert
Bent
id: 83156
Charl
es L
ayto
n
John &
Jam
es A
spin
all
id: 82464
John &
Jam
es A
spin
all
id: 83766
John &
Jam
es A
spin
all
cf.
tra
nsaction o
n S
epte
mber
9
John &
Jam
es A
spin
all
cf.
tra
nsaction o
n S
epte
mber
9
H.
Danie
ls
Jam
es S
wanzy
Jam
es S
wanzy
Joseph C
ohen &
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53
An Iranian Port City of Bandar Abbas in the 18th Century:
A Case Study of the East India Company‟s Brokers
Norifumi DAITO
(Kobe University, JAPAN)
Introduction
The aim of this paper is to examine the activities of the English East India Company‟s
brokers at Bandar Abbas in the first half of the 18th century. It is tried to find out that
how Bandar Abbas declined during that period.
Bandar Abbas is located on the north shore of the Strait of Hormuz, the mouth of
the Persian Gulf (see Map1 and Map2).
This port was established by the Safavid dynasty after the conquest of Hormuz in
1622. Until then Hormuz had been the major port in the Persian Gulf controlled by the
Portuguese. The Safavids, after expelling the Portuguese from the port, relocated its port
function to the opposite shore and named it Bandar Abbas. The major officers of Bandar
Abbas were the governor (ḥākem/solṭān/khān) and the customs-master (shāhbandar),
who were appointed by the Safavid authorities1.
Bandar Abbas was highly developed as a major port of international trade in the
Gulf during the 17th and early 18th centuries. This port connected many areas along the
Indian Ocean with the major cities of Iran such as Shiraz, Esfahan, Yazd, and Kerman.
In particular, sea routes for coastal areas in India played an important role in the Indian
Ocean trade, through which enormous amount of specie was exported from Iran in
return for the Indian goods such as cotton textiles, indigos and peppers2.
Bandar Abbas attracted many merchants from Europe as well as Asia. After the
establishment of the town, three European East India Companies set up factories at
Bandar Abbas; the English (the EIC, 1623-1762), the Dutch (the VOC, 1623-1759), and
1 For the Safavid political administration of Bandar Abbas, see [Haneda 2001], [Floor 2006:
272-320]. 2 For the trade in Bandar Abbas and the Persian Gulf in the 17th century, see [Klein 1993-4].
54
the French (perhaps from the late 17th century)3.
But due to the collapse of the Safavid dynasty and the turmoil in Iran in the 1720s,
Bandar Abbas began to decline.
The cause of the turmoil was the conquest of the Safavid capital city Esfahan by
the Afghans in 1722. They marched from Qandahar, one of the chief cities in Khorasan
and occupied Esfahan after seven months seize. From then on, conflicts between the
Afghans and remnant forces of the Safavids had spread all over Iran4. Bandar Abbas
was also occupied by the Afghans in the late 1720s [Floor 1998: 309]. But after the
Safavids drove the Afghans out of Esfahan in 1729, the port was restored to their rule in
the early 1730s [Lockhart 1958: 424]. The situation around Bandar Abbas became
unstable and insecure during that period and affected the trade badly5.
As for the events during the resurgent Safavid period, it should be noted that
Ṭahmāspqolī Khān, a virtual ruler of the dynasty, attempted to create a navy at Bushehr
from 1734. It was a striking change because the Safavids did not have their own ships or
seamen but relied on European naval powers to maintain security in the Persian Gulf
[Floor 2007: 1-21]. After assuming the throne with the name of Nāder in 1736, he
actively dispatched his brand-new navy against Oman (1737-40 and 1742-4)6.
However, during the reign of Nāder Shāh, the trade at Bandar Abbas did not return
to its previous level. Contrary to that, merchants were forced to bear expenses of his
navy and were oppressed by arbitrary rule7. After the assassination of Nāder Shāh in
1747, Bandar Abbas went bad to worse with conflicts among local powers and its role
ended as an international port around 1760 [Floor 2007: 39-40, 93-4].
There have been four studies on the decline of Bandar Abbas. All of them have
traced the process of decline following the trade statistics of the EIC and the VOC.
[al-Khalifa 1988] examined the economy in the Gulf, based on EIC‟s trade
statistics from 1700 to 47. It is mainly concerned with the effect of EIC‟s activities on
the regional economy.
[Floor 1989], [Floor 2006] and [Floor 2007: 39-94] are all based on VOC‟s trade
statistics. [Floor 1989] and [Floor 2006] explored VOC‟s trade after 1747 and during the
Afsharid period (1736-53), respectively. [Floor 2007: 39-94] paid more attention on the
economic situation of Bandar Abbas after 1747.
3 For the EIC, see [Ferrier 1970], [al-Khalifa 1988]. For the VOC, see [Floor & Faghfoory 2004],
[Floor 2009a], etc. 4 For the situation in Iran in the 1720s, see [Lockhart 1958].
5 For the situation in Bandar Abbas in the 1720s, see [Floor 1998: 63-70, 205-21, 291-360].
6 For the Nāder Shāh‟s campaigns in Oman, see [Lockhart 1935].
7 For the situation in Bandar Abbas during the reign of Nāder Shāh, see [Floor 2009b: 101-77].
55
The trade statistics of the EIC and the VOC are important historical sources to
understand the economic situation of Bandar Abbas. However they can only show the
trade conditions of those companies.
Therefore, this paper focuses on merchants in Bandar Abbas, especially Indian
merchants.
During the Safavid period, a larger section of the town population were Indians
such as Moltanis or banyans [Kaempfer 1968: 138]8. They played an important role in
the trade between India and the Persian Gulf, especially in the textiles trade. They were
also major players in the financial market and exported a big amount of the available
specie from Iran [Floor 2006: 304]9.
In the proposed study, it will be attempted to examine the activities of three
banyans who served the EIC as brokers at the Bandar Abbas in the first half of 18th
century. In doing so, the study will show that what changed at the port and why this
change happened, for a better understanding of the way it declined.
The best available source for the study is the EIC‟s diaries and consultations kept at
Bandar Abbas (IOR, G/29/2-14). They are called Gombroon Diary because Bandar
Abbas was well known as Gombroon to English traders. This paper will make use of the
Diary from November 1st, 1708 to July 31st, 1746. The dates used here are all based on
the Julian calendar10
.
1. Activities of Banyans as Broker
It is intended to examine the banyans‟ activities as EIC‟s brokers. In doing so, it will be
attempted to show that they were widely involved not only with EIC‟s trade but also
8 Moltan is a city in the Punjab Province of Pakistan. Banyan found in European sources at that time
is often applied to Hindus and Jainists, in particular their merchants. 9 For the activities of Indian merchants in the Indian Ocean World from 16th to 18th centuries, see
[Nagashima 2000]. For the Indian merchants living and working in diaspora communities dispersed
across Central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran, Caucasus, and much of Russia from 16th to 19th centuries,
see [Levi 2002]. 10
Gombroon Diary is preserved in the British Library, where it consists a part of India Office
Records. Unfortunately, there are a number of gaps in this records, as the following table will show.
G/29/2 contains the Diary from August 1st, 1708 to July 31st, 1710.
G/29/3 contains the Diary from November 23rd, 1726 to March 14th, 1727.
G/29/4 contains the Diary from March 16th, 1727 to July 31st, 1727.
G/29/5 contains the Diary from November 20th, 1728 to July 31st, 1730 and from August 1st,
1731 to July 31st, 1737.
G/29/6 contains the Diary from August 1st, 1737 to July 31st, 1738 and from August 1st, 1739 to
July 31st, 1746.
56
with the management of factories in Iran.
(1) Chittorah
The first broker was named Chitrah/Chittrah/Chittorah/Chittora. There is little
information about him. It is not clear that when he started acting as a broker, but he was
in service from as late as 1706 [IOR, G/29/3, f. 6b]. He lived at the port with his family
[IOR, G/29/3, f. 18a, etc.].
He was involved with EIC‟s exporting. He loaned the EIC money for the purchase
of Kerman wool [IOR, G/29/2, f. 15b, etc]11
and secured the available specie for export
[IOR, G/29/2, f. 9b, etc.].
He was also involved with the management of the factory at Bandar Abbas. He
paid some of the Company‟s expenses for them [IOR, G/29/2, f. 2a, etc.] and made up
their accounts [IOR, G/29/2, f. 13b].
In return for these services, his right was safeguarded. According to Masashi
Haneda, among the royal favors obtained by the EIC, one privilege safeguarded the
right of banyans belonging to the EIC [Haneda 2005: 130]. In addition to that, his
family was also protected by the Company and the protection continued even after his
death [IOR, G/29/3, f. 18a, etc.].
(2) Kessourjee
The second broker was named Kesourjee/Kessourjee12
. He was the son of Chittorah
[IOR, G/29/4, f. 73b]. After succeeding his father in about 1725 [IOR, G/29/3, f. 9a], he
remained in the position until his death in September 1729 [IOR, G/29/5, f. 80a]. He too
lived with his family [IOR, G/29/3, f. 18a, etc.].
He was widely involved with EIC‟s trade.
Concerning the importing, he bought EIC‟s goods such as iron, rice, and woolen
manufactures and sold them to other merchants [IOR, G/29/3, ff. 4a-b, etc.], [IOR,
G/29/3, f. 16b], [IOR, G/29/5, f. 75a]. In return, he received 1 percent brokerage from
the Company [IOR, G/29/3, f. 16b]. He went between the EIC and other merchants in
the trade of lead and woolen manufactures [IOR, G/29/5, f. 2b], [IOR, G/29/5, f. 35b,
etc.]. In addition, he selected some money changers called shroffs (ṣarrāf) for the
11
For the Kerman wool trade by the EIC and VOC, see [Matthee 1993]. 12
Jee is a spelling variant of ji, one of suffixes found in personal names in Gujarati [Ram Mehrotra
1994: 63-84].
57
Company [IOR, G/29/3, f. 14b].
Concerning the exporting, he also loaned the EIC money for the purchase of
Kerman wool [IOR, G/29/4, f. 78b] and secured the specie for export [IOR, G/29/5, ff.
3b-4a]. The EIC transported other merchants‟ goods as well, as their own on their ships.
He collected the former in time for their departure [IOR, G/29/5, f. 3b, etc.].
He was involved with the management of the factories at Bandar Abbas and
Esfahan.
As for the management of the factory at Bandar Abbas, he collected a duty,
imposed on ships sailing in the Gulf by the EIC. In the late of 1720s, the EIC tried to
force the ships to pay for their passes [al-Khalifa 1988: 96-7] and he collected the fee
for them [IOR, G/29/4, f. 12b, etc.]. He also paid some of the Company‟s expenses for
them [IOR, G/29/5, ff. 48a-b, etc.]. For instance, he paid salaries to the EIC‟s staffs for
the Company, among whom were Armenians and Persians [IOR, G/29/5, f. 75b, etc.].
Furthermore, he brought food and necessities into the factory [IOR, G/29/4, f. 79b, etc.]
and could procure ships for the Company [IOR, G/29/4, f. 15a].
As for the management of the factory at Esfahan, he encouraged EIC‟s money
changer there, to supply their staffs with some subsistence money [IOR, G/29/3, f. 4a].
Moreover, he could negotiate with the government at Bandar Abbas for the
Company [G/29/4, ff. 23a-b, etc.].
In return for these services, his right was also safeguarded [Haneda 2005: 130].
This privilege was confirmed by the Afghan king Ashraf (r. 1725-9) [IOR, G/29/3, f. 7b].
He and his family were protected by the EIC whenever they or their property were in
danger [IOR, G/29/5, f. 17a, etc.].
(3) Sanchar
The third broker was named Sanchar/Sankhar. He was not related to his two
predecessors. He had dealt with the EIC in the Kerman wool trade before he succeeded
Kessourjee [IOR, G/29/5, ff. 60b-61a, etc.]. Sanchar officially took over as a broker in
April 1730 [IOR, G/29/5, f. 106a]. He too lived with his family. He had his agent at
Masqat for trade [IOR, G/29/5, f. 343b, etc.].
He was also widely involved with EIC‟s trade.
Concerning the importing, he bought EIC‟s woolen manufactures and sold them to
other merchants [IOR, G/29/5, f. 143b, etc.]. In return, he too like his predecessors
received 1 percent brokerage from the Company [IOR, G/29/5, f. 220a, etc.]. In addition
to that, he went between the EIC and other merchants or the local government in the
58
woolen manufactures trade [IOR, G/29/5, f. 105b, etc.], [IOR, G/29/6, ff. 230a-b].
Concerning the exporting, he too loaned the EIC money for purchase of Kerman
wool [IOR, G/29/5, f. 222b, etc.] and collected other merchants‟ goods to load them on
the Company‟s ships in a similar fashion as Kessourjee [IOR, G/29/6, f. 12a]. In
addition, he weighed the specie for export [IOR, G/29/6, f. 29b].
Moreover, he was involved in controlling private trade. All the people at the
factory were forbidden to make any contracts, unless it was made in the presence of
Cheif or broker in his name [IOR, G/29/5, ff. 126b-127a].
He was also involved in the management of the factories at Bandar Abbas and
Esfahan.
As for the management of the factory at Bandar Abbas, he also paid some of the
Company‟s expenses for them [IOR, G/29/5, f. 136b, etc.] and brought food and
necessities into the factory [IOR, G/29/6, f. 49b]. Besides, he was put in charge of all
the repair work of the factory [IOR, G/29/5, f. 142a, etc.].
As for the management of the factory at Esfahan, he loaned the EIC money for the
payment of expenses at Esfahan [IOR, G/29/5, f. 109b, etc.].
In return for these services, like his predecessors, his right was safeguarded
[Haneda 2005: 130]. One privilege granted to the EIC by Nāder Shāh forbade anybody
to force him for anything [IOR, G/29/5, f. 340b]. He and his family was also protected
by the Company [IOR, G/29/6, f. 56b].
2. Activities as a Mediator between the Local Government and the EIC
In this chapter, it is attempted to take up a case which tells that EIC‟s brokers acted as a
mediator between the local government and the EIC. The case will show that the broker
had a heavy influence in the port city as a mediator between them till the late 1720s at
earliest.
This point has already been discussed in detail in my article [Daito 2009].
Therefore I would like to explain the outline of it here.
The case was recorded in Gombroon Diary on July 4th, 1727.
At that time, as it is mentioned earlier, Iran was unstable with conflicts between the
Afghans and the remnant forces of the Safavids. Around Bandar Abbas, many powers
tried to assume control over the port.
Bandar Abbas was under a Persian governor, who tried to defend his position.
Around the port was a man who proclaimed himself to be a prince of the Safavids. He
aimed to rule the port. From Esfahan, a former customs-master, marched with the
59
support of the Afghans. His purpose was to recapture his former post13
. In addition, an
Arab ruler of Basidu, a small port situated at the southwest end of Qeshm Island, too
aimed to rule Bandar Abbas.
The EIC tried to secure their rights and interests.
These rights were deeply involved in the establishment and development of Bandar
Abbas. As mentioned earlier, Bandar Abbas was established by the Safavids after the
conquest of Hormuz in 1622, when the EIC transported the Safavid troops on their ships
to the island and bombarded against the Portuguese stronghold. In reward for this
contribution, Safavid King ʻAbbās (r. 1587-1629) allowed the EIC to receive half of the
customs revenues of the new port, provided they maintained two ships of war in the
Gulf to guard against any retaliatory action by the Portuguese [Lockhart 1958: 362].
This privilege was reconfirmed by the successive kings14
.
In 1727, the EIC pressed the governor at the port to give them their share of
customs. Furthermore, they launched an expedition against Basidu demanding the ruler
for the same because he proclaimed himself to be a Shawbunder (shāhbandar) of
Bandar Abbas. As a result, the EIC was in a position to affect the course of events.
Under these circumstances, the EIC‟s broker induced the Company to recognize
the governor‟s authority15
.
3. Decline of Broker
In this chapter, it is tried to examine the changes that occurred in the status of the broker
in the late 1730s. In doing so, it is attempted to demonstrate the economic condition of
the broker which severely deteriorated at that time persuading him to stop acting as a
broker.
On October 4th, 1739, Sanchar requested the EIC to permit him to resign from his
post (Doc. 1). Doc. 1 points out two facts.
Firstly, the EIC refused to sell their woolen manufactures in the last year and
13
His name was Mirzah Zaid Ally (Mīrzā Zāhed „Alī), a member of „Evāz Beyg family from Lar.
As of 1668, when the administration of the Persian Gulf ports was farmed out, if not earlier, until
1728, the function of shāhbandar of the Gulf was practically monopolized by them. As of 1730 there
is no more farming of the customs administration [Floor 2006: 238, 290-3, 296-304]. 14
However, It would seem that the EIC only received at best 10 percent, and often less, of what was
due to them. They finally acquiesced in receiving an annual payment of 1000 tomands (tomān) in
lieu of half the customs revenues as of 1670 [Floor 2006: 312-5]. For more information on the
privilege, see [al-Khalifa 1988: 19-43], [Haneda 2007: 203-6]. 15
For interpreters at Bandar Abbas, see [Haneda 2005], [Haneda 2006], [Haneda 2009].
60
denied him of the credits he enjoyed before. It indicates that his economic condition
deteriorated to the point where he could no longer be a good trading partner of the
Company.
Secondly, he was often charged with money by the local government for the reason
he was EIC‟s broker. It shows that due to the aforementioned situation, the EIC was no
longer active in protecting him.
Sanchar was permitted to work as a broker until his debts were cleared and he
discharged what he owed to the EIC [IOR, G/29/6, f. 124a]. However from then on, he
had not acted as a broker as before16
.
The case on October 20th, 1742 confirms this (Doc. 2).
The EIC expressed inconvenience dealing with the government and the usefulness
of the broker. It indicates that the broker‟s virtual resignation created a new situation
where the local government and the EIC dealt directly with each other.
Conclusion
So far it has been examined that the banyans who served the EIC as brokers at the
Bandar Abbas in the first half of 18th century. In context to this, the following results
were obtained.
1. EIC‟s brokers in the first half of 18th century were widely involved not only with
EIC‟s trade but also with the management of the factories in Iran.
2. Based on that, they had a heavy influence in the port city as a mediator between the
local government and the EIC till the late 1720s at earliest.
3. The economic conditions of the broker severely deteriorated in the late 1730s and he
stopped acting as one. It created a new situation where the EIC dealt directly with
other merchants and the local government.
These results lead us to the following conclusion. The relationship between the
local government, the EIC and their broker could bring order to Bandar Abbas till the
late 1720s at earliest. However, by the decline of the broker in the late 1730s, the
relationship was broken off. As it is mentioned above, in the late 1730s, Nāder Shāh
attempted to create his own navy in the Persian Gulf. The case of EIC‟s brokers
indicates that this movement to build a new order in the Gulf was a major cause for the
16
He stopped buying the EIC‟s woolen manufactures in June 1740 [IOR, G/29/6, ff. 97b-98a], while
he continued to go between the EIC and other merchants in its trade [IOR, G/29/6, f. 152a, etc].
61
change of the relationship17
.
Map 1 Iranian Plateau and Persian Gulf
17
The EIC received their share of customs of Bandar Abbas until 1735-6. However in March 1737,
the privilege was substituted by a grant of one third of customs collected on goods imported by the
English ships. For the Company, the new arrangement was a major setback from the days when they
enjoyed half the customs revenues of the port [al-Khalifa 1988: 35, 99]. The decision made by Nāder
Shāh also must have been influenced by the progress of his project in the Gulf.
62
Map 2 The north shore of the Strait of Hormuz
Map1 and Map2 are based on the maps of [Haneda 2001: 2].
63
Bibliography
The Unpublished Sources
IOR, G/29/: India Office Records, East India Company Factory Records: Persia and the
Persian Gulf.
Kaempfer, E. 1968, K. Meier-Lemgo (ed.), Die Reisetagebücher Engelbert Kaempfers.
Wiesbaden.
The Published Sources and the Secondary Works
Daito, N. 2009, “Bandare Abbas ni okeru Igirisu higashi Indo gaisha no „tsuyaku‟”.
Kaiko toshi kenkyu, 4, 97-106.
Ferrier, R.W. 1970, British-Persian Relations in the 17th Century. Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Cambridge.
Floor, W. 1989, “The Decline of the Dutch East Indies Company in Bandar „Abbas”.
Moyen Orient & Océan Indien, 7, 45-80.
Floor, W. 1998, The Afghan Occupation of Safavid Persia 1721-1729. Paris.
Floor, W. & Faghfoory, M.H. 2004, The First Dutch-Persian Commercial Conflict: The
Attack of Qeshm Island, 1645. California.
Floor, W. 2005, “Dutch Trade in Afsharid Persia (1730-53)”. Studia Iranica, 34, 43-94.
Floor, W. 2006, The Persian Gulf: A Political and Economic History of Five Port Cities,
1500-1730. Washington, D.C.
Floor, W. 2007, The Persian Gulf: The Rise of the Gulf Arabs: The Politics of Trade on
the Persian Littoral, 1747-1792. Washington, D.C.
Floor, W. 2009a, “Dutch Relations with the Persian Gulf”. In: L.G. Potter (ed.), The
Persian Gulf in History. New York, 235-259.
Floor, W. 2009b, The Rise and Fall of Nader Shah: Dutch East India Company Reports,
1730-47. Washington, D.C.
Haneda, M. 2001, “Bandare Abbas to Perushiawan kaiiki sekai”. Rekishigaku kenkyu,
757, 1-11, 42.
Haneda M. 2005, “Bandar Abbas and Nagasaki: An Analysis of the Reaction of the
Safavid Government to Europeans from a Comparative Perspective”. Annual of
Japan Association for Middle East Studies, 20(2), 119-130.
Haneda, M. 2006, “Les compagnies des Indes Orientales et les interprètes de Bandar
„Abbās”. Eurasian Studies, 1-2, 175-193.
Haneda, M. 2007, “Higashi Indo gaisha to Ajia no umi”. Tokyo.
Haneda, M. 2009, “Canton, Nagasaki and the Port Cities of the Indian Ocean: A
64
Comparison”. M. Haneda (ed.), Asian Port Cities, 1600-1800: Local and Foreign
Cultural Interactions. 13-23.
al-Khalifa, K.K. 1988, Commerce and Conflict: The English East India Company
Factories in the Gulf, 1700-47. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Essex.
Klein, R. 1993-4, Trade in the Safavid Port City Bandar Abbas and the Persian Gulf (ca.
1600-1680): A Study of Selected Aspects. Ph.D. dissertation, University of London.
Levi, S.C. 2002, The Indian Diaspora in Central Asia and its Trade, 1550-1900. Leiden.
Lockhart, L. 1935, “Nadir Shah‟s Campaigns in Oman, 1737-1744”. Bulletin of the
School of Oriental Studies, 8(1), 157-171.
Lockhart, L. 1958, The Fall of the Ṣafavī Dynasty and the Afghan Occupation of Persia.
Cambridge.
Matthee, R. 1993, “The East India Company Trade in Kerman Wool, 1658-1730”. In: J.
Calmard (ed.), Etudes Safavides. Paris & Teheran, 343-383.
Nagashima, H. 2000, “Indoyo to Indo shonin”. In: K. Kabayama, etc. (eds.), Isuramu,
kan- Indoyo sekai. Tokyo, 141-165.
Ram Mehrotra, R (ed.). 1994, Book of Indian Names. New Delhi.
Doc. 1
[IOR, G/29/6, f. 56a]
[16] Sankhar Waiting on the Agent this Morning, hinted
[17] some Suspicions of the Hon' Company's having given
[18] Orders to discharge him from the Brokership, as they had
[19] refused to let him have the last years Cloth, tho' so small
[20] a Quantity, & his Debt to them lessened within a Trifle
[21] Complaining also of his Sufferings from the Government
[22] who under the Distinction of being our Broker, he said,
[23] and with the Notion of his prodigious Gettings, had
[24] taken from him at times, as he cou‟d make appear
[25] by his Books, to the amount of above four thousand
[26] Tomands, besides Obliging him to trust them great Sums
[27] otherways, All which as a private Merchant he shod
[28] have been exempted from. That he had likewise Money
[29] Owing him from Europeans, which either thro' Death
[IOR, G/29/6, f. 56b]
[1] or Disability he shou'd hardly ever recover: and inf[-]
65
[2] that the decline in Trade of late, & the little prospect
[3] he saw of its reviving whereby he might be encouraged
[4] to sit under these hardships, but on the contrary new
[5] ones approaching which his present Circumstances w[-]
[6] not allow him to Submit to, with other Reasons, but
[7] principally, That of the Ho Companys denying him
[8] their Credit as before, Determined him to take our Lea[-]
[9] for his resigning, after he had collected his Debts, & clea[-]
[10] off the remainder of what he Owed the Hon‟ Company
Doc. 2
[IOR, G/29/6, f. 230a]
[33] In part of Payment of what the Beglerbeggy Owes us for the
[IOR, G/29/6, f. 230b]
[1] Kings Merchants Transferred, with Stores & other Article[-]
[2] has now sent four Horses Valued at Ten Tomands each, An[-]
[3] this is the inconvenience of dealing with these Governmen[-]
[4] People, tho' unavoidable Formerly indeed when the Broker w[-]
[5] Circumstances they used to direct themselves to him so that
[6] did not appear to the Company but the matter being Change[-]
[7] they nevertheless expecting to be obliged in their wants, We?r[-]
[8] Applied to, But as yet we have been able to keep on tolerabl[-]
[9] Terms & either by assignments on the Bannians or othe[-]
[10] means secured the Money tho' we have been sometime o[-]
[11] of it, The Dutch are fair to Submit to the like (& indeed [-]
[12] particular Merchant) but they have been so ill treated that
[13] they have as some of their Heads Confess'd a Debt outstan[-]
[14] of above One Thousand Tomands from the Government.
66
Regenerating Trade Diaspora:
Supra-regional Contacts and the Role of “Hybrid Muslims”
in the South China Sea since the late 10th to mid-13th Century
Masaki MUKAI
(Osaka University, JAPAN)
Introduction
To reconstruct the formation and transition of the “diasporic” communities of Muslims
around the South China Sea including Arab-Persian immigrants and other people of
various ethnicity formed by conversion and hybridization is the subject of great
importance in several ways.1 Firstly, because it concerns in the history of the people of
trans-national activities that constitute an important topic not only for the Maritime
Asian History and also for the Global History studies in a way by rethinking the
paradigm of modern nations and nation states and paying more attention to the
human‟s activities crossing borderlines and discover some new features of nations,
imagined communities and networks in the past.
This subject is also closely connected with the evolutional history of the hybrid
Chinese Muslims which has been an important topic in the historical research of
diverse "Islamic" traditions in the East. As is partly introduced in this paper, this was
not a seamless process and we can observe several sets of cycles formed by
1 As for the definition of “trade diaspora (and diaspora),” see Cohen 1971; Curtin 1984. In order to
put the specific argument of this paper into much wider context of comparative history, I am
tentatively borrowing this concept in referring to "widely dispersed but mutually interconnected
communities" of Islamic people including Arab-Persian descendants partly mixed with
Han-Chinese and other indigenous populations and was historically formed in the region
surrounding the South China sea mainly through commercial migration and voluntary conversion. I
put stress not on their negative motive of persecution or specific center or homeland but on the
continuity or successiveness of the wide spread Sino-Muslim cultural tradition while whether they
shared a common identity as an imagined "Islamic world" is under question (see Haneda 2005). As
a recent research on Maritime Muslim communities as “trade diaspora,” see John Chaffee,
“Diasporic Identities in the Historical Development of the Maritime Muslim Communities of
Song-Yuan China,” Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient 49, no. 4(2006):
395-420.
67
interruptions and regenerations of their “diasporic” community and trade network.
However as a whole process, we can see it as a continuous one. The first interruption
and regeneration took place during the 10th century prior to the beginning of the Sung
dynasty. The second set is observed in the early Yuan period. And the third one is
around mid-fourteenth century.
In this paper, I would like to show a preliminary overlook focusing on the earliest
stage of supra-regional activities of Islamic people and their roles as mediator in the
frontier societies of the South China coastal region paying attention to these sets of
interruption and regeneration.
(1) The Formation of Arab, Persian Trade Diaspora in the East ?
In the early Song, a lot of tributary missions came from the countries of the “South
Sea.” A certain part of the tributary missions seems to have a close relation to the
activity of Arab and Persian sea-traders Dashi bozhu 大食舶主. Dashi 大食 is the
transcription of the Persian word, Tāzī (or Tājik) which means “an Arab, Arabia” (or “a
Persian, one of Arabian origin brought up in Persia”)2. Bozhu might be the direct
translation from the Persian word, nākhudā, meaning “head of ship,” which was
commonly used around the Indian Ocean.
The first record of the missions from Dashi says that merchant ships (shangchuan
商船) carrying tribute did not stop to come and go thereafter. Pu Ximi, the head of
tributary mission of the caliph, in 976 and his son Pu Yatuoli or Pu Yatili (*Abū Ādil),
later appeared as bozhu 舶主(“head of ship”) and fanke 蕃客(“foreign guest”). These
examples tell us that the tributary missions of Dashi king was actually carried out by
merchants (See Table 1).
The sea-traders spreading over the Asian Sea played a key role for the formation of
the Maritime Asian trade network by connecting the Chinese empire and ports and
polities.
For example, Dashi ships of Arab, Persian merchants were visiting the South
China via Champa and Java. In 971, Dashi, Champa and Java sent tribute to (Li Yu 李
煜 of the )Southern Tang.3
Furthermore, the Sea-traders dragged new participants into the Maritime Asia. In
977, The Brunei (Boni 勃泥) king decided to send the first tributary mission after he
had heard about the Song by Pu Luxie 蒲盧歇 who is considered to be Arab, Persian
2 F. Steingass, A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary including the Arabic Words and
Phrases to be met with in Persian Literature (London: Kegan Paul, 1930; reprint, New Delhi,
1973), 273, 806. 3 See Song shi, chap. 490, Waiguo zhuan, “Dashi.”
68
and had left China for Java and drifted to Brunei.4The map shows above-mentioned
situation that Dashi ships were heading to China and they dragged other country
(Brunei, here) into the circle of maritime contacts.
Table 1. The Tributary Missions of Arab, Persian Sea-traders in the Early Song
Period
Year (C. E. ) Member of Embassies Master or Country
968 Unknown Dashi 大食
971 Li Hemo 李訶末 Dashi/ Sanfoqi 三佛齊
973 Unknown Dashi
974 Bu Luohai 不囉海 (Ibrāhīm?) Dashi king, Caliph 訶黎佛
975 Unknown Dashi
976 Pu Ximi 蒲希密 Dashi king, Caliph
977 Pu Sihao or Pu Sina 蒲思郝 / 蒲思那
with Mahemo 摩訶末 (Muammad?),
Puluo 蒲羅 / 蒲囉
Dashi
993 Li Yawu 李亜勿 Dashi/ “bozhu” Pu Ximi
995 “bozhu” Pu Yatuoli 蒲押陁黎 (The son of Pu
Xi-mi)
“bozhu” Pu Ximi
999(a) Pu Yatili 蒲押提黎
999(b) Wenmao 文茂 “fanke” Pu Yatili
:
1003 Poluoqin 婆羅欽 Dashi
:
1008 “fanke” Li Mawu 李麻勿 “bozhu” Li Yawu
(Sources: Song shi 宋史 , chap. 490, Waiguo zhuan 外國傳 (Biography of Foreign Countries); Song
hui yao ji gao 宋會要輯稿 , Fanyi 蕃夷 7, 9; and Yu hai 玉海 , chap. 154; and Xu zi zhi tong jian
chang bian 續資治通鑑長編 , passim.)
4 See Song shi, chap. 489, Waiguo zhuan, “Boni”; Song hui yao ji gao, Fanyi 7, p. 8.
69
Map 1. The Movements of Arab Persian Merchants and Transition of the Zone of
Intensive Maritime Trade Activities from the South Sea to South China Coastal
Region.
(2) The Disappearance of Arab, Persians and Appearance of Hybrid
Sino-Muslims
A detailed account on an Arab (or Persian) sea-trader Pu Ximi 蒲希密 tells us the fact
that the Song court did not promote an active maritime trade policy but it addressed an
imperial edict to Guangzhou and the leader of foreign settlement to invite foreign
merchants. Judging from the text of his biao 表 (the letter to the emperor) written by
highly sophisticated Classical Chinese following the orthodox terminology of celestial
kingdom, the Chinese literati who were familiar with this kind of classical texts must
have helped to prepare biao for the tributary mission.5 In this way, the foreign
merchants in Guangzhou, such as above mentioned Pu Ximi, were able to play an
exclusively important role as mediator utilizing connections with these local Chinese
elites.
An orthodox discourse on the Maritime trade during Song period is about the
problem of the “Disappearance of Islamic merchants.” The view that the overseas
activities of Chinese merchants developed during the Song period is commonly
accepted. A conventional view relating to above is the “expel” of Muslims by Chinese
5 See Song shi, chap. 490, Waiguo zhuan, “Dashi.”
70
merchants from the South China Sea and Southeast Asian trade.6 However, this
explains only one side of what actually happened by seeing the difference of people
too rigidly and overlooking the aspects of contacts and assimilations.
In the case of “Muslim merchants,” there were two aspects in the process of
assimilation with Chinese merchants. One is assimilation in the types of business and
the other is cultural assimilation.
Figure 1. The Grave Stone of Pu banyuan dated 1264 and the Old Muslim
Cemetery in Bandar sri bugawan, Brunei (Source: Franke and Ch‟en 1973).
An example of Arab, Persian descendants in the “dual” process of assimilation can
be seen in an old Chinese stele found in the Muslim cemetery in the capital of Brunei
darussrusalam, Bandar sri bugawan (See Figure 1). It says, “The grave of Pu 蒲,
banyuan 判院 (a local official title) from Quanzhou erected in 1264.” It clearly
indicate the process of Sinicization in culture because it was written in Chinese and in
business type for their base of activity is considered to have been in Quanzhou.7
6 Shiraishi Akiko (1964:26) pointed out that the development of overseas activities of Chinese
merchants expelled Islamic merchants around South China Sea except some Sinicized ones.
Kenneth Hall (1985: 196-197) suggests that other than the development of Chinese merchants,
political disorder around Persian Gulf after the decline of the Abbasids in the mid 10th century
caused the decreasing Arab role in Southeast Asian trade between twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 7 See Franke and Ch‟en 1973. The credibility of a very rare book Xishang zazhi refering to the
71
What is worth noticing is the dead person‟s official title. According to my
preliminary research on the examples of foreigners bearing official titles, we can find
several ways in which foreign merchants obtained official titles. There were foreign
merchants who obtained official titles through various ways.
(A) Since, as early as the Northern Song period, some merchants were granted the
title of martial official such as langjiang 郎將 or jiangjun 將軍 as a reward for their
tributary activity. The meaning of it is explained by a scholar that these official titles
had the function to assure their credibility and gain their prestige toward Chinese
merchants and officials of the Maritime Trade Supervisorate (shibosi 市舶司 ).8
(B) There were also foreign merchants who tried to obtain a local official rank by
money or by an illegal way. For example, in 1124, the old woman of foreign origin
named Pu brought the bribes of foreign exotics to the imperial court and asked for an
official rank for her son. The account says that a eunuch helped her.9 It is possible to
view that for the foreign merchants, to become official was a good way to pursue a
safer living basis than to depend only on an unstable maritime trade.
(C) It was also very common during Southern Song period to grant foreign
merchants, official titles as reward for carrying exotics or guiding the embassy of
foreign country. For example, in 1136, a lower-rank martial official title, chengxinlang
承信郎 , and a set of official suits was given to Pu Luoxin 蒲囉辛 from an “Arab or
Persian barbarian country” (Dashi fanguo 大食蕃國 ) who built a ship and carried
frankincense and paid the tax equal to 30‟000 guan copper coins to the Maritime Trade
Supervisorate at Quanzhou 泉州 . The account reveals that the aim of this reward by
the emperor was to prompt foreign merchants to bring more frankincense. In 1156,
Pujin, who had resided in Guangzhou for a long time and was already granted
chengxinlang, was promoted to be zhongxunlang 忠訓郎 by his merits of tributary
(jinfeng 進奉 ). Previously, he had come as the member of embassy from Sanfoqi. At
the same time, Pu Yanxiu 蒲延秀 was granted chengxinlang, following the example
of Chen Wei‟an 陳維安 who had guided the embassy from Champa the other day.10
In Addition, we cannot neglect another important meaning of granting official title,
that is, official approval of their local influence. And we have a good example of this
person of Brunei inscription and introduced by Zhuan Weiji (“Wenlai-guo quanzhou songmu kaoshi
[An Interpretation of the Song period‟s Quanzhou Grave from Brunei],” Haijiaoshi yanjiu
[Maritime History Studies], no. 2[1990]: 80-84) was argued by several scholars and mostly
questioned. See articles by Chen Tiefan and Wolfgang Franke, Lin Shaochuan and Gong Yuanming
in Haijiaoshi Yanjiu, no. 2(1991) and Xie Fang in Haijiaoshi yanjiu, no. 1(1998). 8 See Shiraishi 1964: 25.
9 Pu yang wen xian 莆陽文献 , Liezhuan 列傳 (Biographies) 32, “Lin Ji 林枅 .”
10 Song hui yao ji gao, Fanyi 4-94; 7-48.
72
pattern. It is an example of famous foreign merchant of Quanzhou――Pu Shougeng
蒲壽庚. He was granted the titles of zhaofushi 招撫使 (commander of local militia)
and shibo tiju 市舶提擧 (head of the office of maritime affairs) during the last years
of the Southern Song.11
In my opinion, these titles were not more than a nominal
approval of his private militia consisting of thousands men and a substantial control of
maritime trade at Quanzhou lasting 30 years.12
Map 2. The Presumed Area of Pu Shougeng's Residence in the Quanzhou City
(Based on Fujian sheng quanzhou shi diming bangongshi (ed.), Fujian sheng
quanzhou shi diminglu (Place Names of Quanzhou City in Fujian Province), 1982.
His family‟s local influence seems to have lasted until the Yuan period. The old
street names preserved in nowadays Quanzhou city are said to have relation with the
lost residence of Pu Shougeng (See Map 2). For example, (1) Jiangwu Lane(Jiangwu
xiang 講武巷 , the place of Pu Shougeng's Jiangwu hall [Jiangwu tang 講武堂 ) (2)
11
So1991; So2000:106-114,301-305. 12
See Mukai 2007: 67-96.
(1)
(2) (3)
(4)
(5)
(6) (7)
(A)
(B
)
(C
)
Jin Jiang
(Jin River)
The walled city of Quanzhou
during Song-Yuan period
The other places related with foreigners and maritime trade in present Quanzhou city: (A) Qingjingsi
清浄寺 (Old Mosque first built in Song period) (B) The site of the Maritime Trade Supervisorate of the
Song (C) Jubao jie 聚寶街 (gathering treasures street)
73
Chess-board Gurden(Qipan yuan 棋盤園 ), Pu Shougeng made a part of his Flower
Garden [Huayuan] into a big chess-board, (3) Donglu Lane(Donglu xiang 東魯巷 ,
the place of Pu Shougeng's study) (4) Zaozi Lane (Zaozi xiang 灶仔巷 , the place of
kitchen for Pu Shougeng's barracks), (5) 33 rooms (Sanshier jian 三十二間 , rooms
for 33 beauties who act as pieces on the big chess board in his garden in the storied
building of Pu Shougeng's residence), (6) Great Narrow Gate (Da‟ai men 大隘門 , the
gate of Pu Shougeng's residence), (7) The edge of Flower Garden (Huayuan tou 花園
頭 ) (see Map2). When we mapped all of these place names, his residence covered
most part of the foreign settlement in Quanzhou. It suggests that local influence of
foreign people in Chinese port city should not be underestimated.
(3) Implication of the Surrender of Pu Shougeng toward the New Order
In 1276, Pu Shougeng “betrayed” the Southern Song dynasty and surrendered to the
Mongols with the thousands of his private militia and the citizens of Quanzhou. The
map 3 shows the military situation of the southeast coast of China around 1276, the
period of final battles between Song and Yuan dynasties.
We can see square flames rimmed with black, gray and white colors in the map.
The flame rimmed with black and gray color is the military and governmental
headquarters of the Yuan dynasty. And with white color is of the Song dynasty. Then
the flames without color are private military forces of the coastal regions they kept
neutral attitude during the battles between the Song and the Yuan.
Through this map, it is clear that the situation is very different from what
obviously believed in many respects.
Firstly, as Professor Lo Jungpang and Xiao Qiqing‟s studies show, the Mongol
empire had already built the powerful navy by 1276.13
Furthermore, the Mongols obtained many Song battle ships during the war on the
Yangze river. For example, the battle of Jiaoshan 焦山 was a crucial turning point for
that the Mongols defeat the Song Navy and which was a fatal damage for the Song
dynasty. In the battle, the Mongols obtained 7 hundred sea-going jonks called White
Spallow battle ships (baiyaozi 白鷂子 ).14
And soon later, the Mongols copied the
design and made 100 White Spallows. As a result, when they built the Navy and its
headquarter is called Supreme Marshal Office of the Coast at Dinghai 定海 (Yuanhai
13
See Lo 1955; Xiao 1990. 14
Su Tianjue 蘇天爵 , Guochao mingchen shilüe 國朝名臣事略 , chap. 2, “Chengxiang henan
wudingwang 丞相河南武定王 ” (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1996, p. 29); Guochao wenlei 國朝
文類 , chap. 70, Yuan Mingshan 元明善 , “Gaocheng dongshi jiazhuan 藁城董氏家伝 ,” p.9
(Yuanwenlei 元文類 , Taipei: Shijie shuju 世界書局 , 1989, p.772).
74
zhaotaoshi 沿海招討使 , later moved to Qingyuan 慶元 [Ningbo, today] and
elevated in rank as duyuanshuaifu 都元帥府 ), they had at least 5000 soldiers and 800
sea-going battleships.15
And it is said that the Yuan fleet boarding several hundred
thousands‟ trained soldiers crossed the ocean to siege Southern Song capital Lin‟an 臨
安 ―Hangzhou, today.16
Other figures on the map were obtained from various
contemporary historical sources.17
As a contemporary historical source reveals, one of the Song loyalists and local
military chief called Zhang Zhezhai 張哲齋 tried to gather other military forces along
the South China coastal region for the battle against the Mongols. Although the plan
met with failure and he was soon executed, the victory of the Mongol was not solid if a
lot of maritime forces had supported him.18
Under these circumstances, Pu Shougeng‟s
surrender was timely and highly appraised and fully rewarded by the Mongols after the
war.
Long believed view that the Mongol army was mainly consisted of cavalry and
foot soldiers and not good at naval battle is not more than a myth. So, we must
reconsider the role of Pu Shougeng who previously believed to be purely a mercantile
figure and contributed to the Mongols by giving tade ships for the Mongols navy.
However, if we closely observe the military situation around 1276, it is obvious
that Pu Shougeng‟s contribution was still important for the Mongol‟s victory against
the Song. The Southern Song princes and his followers, escaped from the capital
Lin‟an and fled to Fuzhou ,still had a quite large military forces as shown on the map.
Add to this, Pu Shougeng‟s contribution was not merely supplying ships. Rather, his
actual contribution was in the battles and it had significant under the realm of the
Mongols. We can observe his participation in the naval battles against the remaining
Song followers by a few surviving records.19
The connection with a Jalayil commander, Suodu which in turn in the overseas
missions to the countries in the South Sea during early Yuan period should have
formed and consolidated in the process of cooperation in the battles against the
Southern Song loyalists. In this sense, the determining fact in the Pu Shougeng‟s
15
Yuanshi, chap. 132, Liezhuan 列傳 (Bigraphies) 19, Halatai, p.3216. 16
Yuan bingzi pingsonglu 元丙子平宋録 (Qing period manuscript in Beijing University Library);
Pingsonglu 平宋録 (Shoushangecongshu 守山閣叢書 edition), the tenth month of the twelfth
year of Zhiyuan 至元 period. 17
Figures of private military forces of the coastal region are mainly based on Yuan shi, Shizu benji
and that of the Song navy is based on “Guangwang benmo 広王本末 ”( in Songji sanchao
zhengyao 宋季三朝政要 ), the eleventh month of the Jingyuan 景元 period (1276). 18
“Zhang Tiezhai” in Wenshan xiansheng wenji 文山先生文集, chap. 19, zhuan (Biographies). 19
Liu Yueshen 劉岳申 , “Wen Tianxiang zhuan 文天祥傳 ” in Wenshan xiansheng wenji, chap.
19.
75
activities in the next stage was a military contribution as a private military force in the
battles. In this sense, how the personal ties bonded key persons is crucial for better
understanding of a background of the maritime trade and overseas missions conducted
in the new order under the Mongols.
Map3. Military Situation of the Southeast Coast of China around 1276
The ruling system of South China was constructed by the hands of Mongol
generals stationed there and the connections of each branches of the Yuan troops was
kept in the administrations after the war.20
The same is true in Fujian province. There were two distinct troops in Fujian
20
See Tsutsumi Kazuaki, 1996, 1998, 2000.
76
administration which is originated from the former military order. When Pu Shougeng
surrendered, there were two major headquarters dispatching the branch troops and
conducting subjugation of the region. The troop under Mangγudai was a branch of the
army corps headquartered at Hangzhou. Another one under Suodo was a branch of
Jianxi army corps (See Table 2).
Pu Shougeng participated the battle in corporation with Suodu and his militia was
connected with the troop of Suodu and he himself became an official of the Mobile
secretariat of Jianxi. Then the connection with Suodu and also his maritime trade
network was important for his subsequent activities in the field of foreign relation
under the Yuan regime. And another figure Mangγudai became even more eminent and
influencial in Fujian and Zhejiang region and seems to have tried to control the
maritime trade in opposition to former Song trade network under Pu Shougeng. For
example, in 1278, Mangγudai arrested an envoi dispatched to foreign country by
Suodu and Pu21
. Behind him should be the network of Central- and Western Asians.
Because he had a close connection with a Central Asian Muslim official Shihab al-Din.
And using his fleet he sometimes seize trade ships to obtain illegal duties22
.
What I have described above is in a sense how the former Song trade network was
absorbed into the Yuan regime. And this is one example of what already theoretically
said that is how the over Eurasian network was completed in the east because of the
unification of long divided China by the Mongols. Furthermore, the significance of Pu
Shougeng‟s surrender was not only for his contribution to the dynastic change but also
for his participation in the formation of the new order of the overseas relationship.
Conclusion
Through above-mentioned examples of earliest stage of the activities of Arab, Persians
and their offspring around South China Sea, we can (at least partly) observe that the
evolution of their “diasporic” communities was not a seamless process and we can see
several sets of interruptions and regenerations. These occasional disruptions were
considered to be related to the shift of gravity in the Cross-Cultural exchanges in the
maritime world.
21
See Yuan shi 元史 , chap. 12, Shizu benji 世祖本紀 (Basic Annals of the Emperor Shizu) 9,
the seventh month on the nineteenth year of Zhiyuan 至元 period, p. 245 (Zhonghua shuju 中華
書局 edition). 22
See Dayuan shengzheng guochao dianzhang 大元聖政國朝典章 , chap. 22, hubu 戸部 8,
“Shibo zefa ershisan tiao 市舶則法二十三條 ,” p.47 (Yingyin Yuanben Dayuan shengzheng
guochao dianzhang 影印元本大元聖政國朝典章, Taiwan: Wenhai chubanshe 文海出版社 , 1964
[reprt., Kyoto: Zhongwen chubanshe 中文出版社, 1976, 2vols.],vol.2, pp. 1061-1062).
77
Guangzhou and Quanzhou had successively constituted twin location of Arab,
Persians migration and focus points of Cross-Cultural exchanges on the South China
coast. Approximately after the decline of the Tang rule in the early 10th century, the
gravity of Cross-Cultural exchange seems to have moved from Guangzhou to the Straits
of Malacca. By 970s, the Arab, Persian sea-traders‟ active tributary missions to the Song
court represents the revival of the active role of the ports on the South China coast and
then, the retreat of the Arab, Persians in the South Sea during the Southern Song period
again lead to the shift of the major role in the Cross-Cultural exchange to the Southeast
Asian ports.
As Janet L. Abu-Lughod pointed out, the Straits of Malacca gained its importance
when China retreated and, in reverse, it reduced importance when China actively
embarked to the maritime world. Accordingly, the Chinese overseas expansion and the
destiny of the Straits were interrelated.23
Moreover, the role of comprador was not
only for the ports of the Straits but also for those of the South China coastal region that
had been the main base for the Chinese overseas endeavor. So what is crucial for the
prosperity and the decline of the ports of the Straits and the South China coastal region
was a shift of zone of the intensive trade activity and active port city in area of
maritime communication. And I prospect that it is also the case for the situation around
the southward expansion of the Yuan dynasty in the next stage.
On the other hand, as a whole process, we can still see the period argued in this
paper as a consistent cycle. As we have seen, during the Song period, bozhus and fankes
of Arab-Persian origin were active and their offspring, Pu Shougeng expanded influence
from the late Song to early Yuan. At least pay attention to the trans-regional activities of
trans-periodic succession is important to see this long term transition can be seen as one
continuous period. When we focus on whole process of “trans-periodic” succession of
the Islamic groups, further studies may discover the long cycle of Maritime trade
network from 10th century toward “the Age of Commerce” as one continuous process.
This can be a contribution to overcome the dynasty-divided historiography.
23
Janet L. Abu-Lughod pointed out that the “natural” role of the ports along the Straits (of
Malacca; e.g., Palembang, Jambi and so on) was that of comprador , a role that is both politically
contingent and economically unstable. And especially in relation with Chinese maritime
development, we can observe a see-saw like transitions in the importance of the ports in the Straits.
She wrote, “Whenever the Chinese moved aggressively outward, the intermediary ports
paradoxically became more prosperous but less important. Whenever the Chinese pulled back from
the western circuit or, even worce, interdicted direct passage of foreign ships into their harbors, the
ports in the straits flourished, but only because Chinese vessels took up the easternmost circuit
slack by meeting their trading partners at Palembang, Kedah, or, later, Malacca” (Abu-Lughod
1989: 311).
78
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