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The Chance of the
Moment: Coffee and the New West Indies Commodities Trade
Michelle Craig
McDonald
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IN
January 1773 Captain John Ash wrote to his financial backers, the
Liverpool-based firm Brown & Birch, of his safe arrival in the
Caribbean. He also informed them of a change in plans. Contracted to secure
a cargo of wood and mules, Ash tried first in British Tortola and then in
Danish Saint Thomas without success. He sailed next to the Spanish colony
of Puerto Rico where he reported: "We loaded what of the wood we could
get there and sent express to the out bays near us, who returned for
answer, that there was very little and so situated that we could not get at
it either with ship or boats ... we proceeded then to another design for we
found neither wood nor mules, but a good deal of coffee."1 Jamaicans were unlikely to buy Ash's
coffee when he returned to Kingston because they produced enough of their
own, yet he purchased between two and three thousand pounds, reasoning it could
be resold in North America to offset the expense of his endeavor.
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1
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A decade later many more merchants and ship
captains were discovering, as Ash had learned, the lucrative potential of
coffee trading. Demand for coffee in the United States grew rapidly after
1783, both as an article of home consumption and as one of the new nation's
most profitable reexported commodities. The postrevolutionary coffee trade
illustrates the importance of the West Indies to early American economic
development and the increasingly international orientation of United States–Caribbean
trade. Focusing on coffee helps revise the work of earlier historians who
argued that, with barely a lull, Britain reemerged as America's foremost
trading partner and continued to dominate the new nation's financial
landscape. "Only very slowly did the United States advance out of its
colonial economy," suggested John J. McCusker and Russell Menard in The
Economy of British America. "The decade immediately following the
end of the war looked economically much the same as the decade preceding
it, in basic structure, if not in detail."2 Yet it is in the details that
differences are most apparent. Trade to Europe may have resumed along
familiar lines, but McCusker and Menard underestimated the profound changes
in West Indian commerce after 1783.
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2
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Before the American Revolution, most coffee
entering North America originated in British Jamaica or, after 1763, the
ceded islands of Grenada, Saint Vincent, and Dominica, and arrived through
Philadelphia. Parliament's decision to enforce the Navigation Acts on
United States trade after American independence, with "regulations by
which the exportation of sugar and coffee, from those [West Indian]
colonies, in American vessels, is generally prohibited," irrevocably
altered this pattern, and did so at a time when the American coffee
business was booming. Philadelphia continued to dominate North America's
coffee import market, but the city's merchants shifted from British to
non-British, especially French, suppliers (Figures
I–II). By
1802 the value of British West Indian coffee coming into the United States
amounted to no more than $1 million, whereas revenue from other parts of
the world rose to more than $8 million.3
Coffee's rapid ascent and prominent place among America's reexport trades
makes it one of the best case studies to gauge how ably and quickly
American merchants could navigate the volatile commercial and legal
networks of a postrevolutionary Atlantic world where, to succeed, traders
needed to be able to reallocate resources quickly (Table
I).
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3
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Figure I
State-by-state breakdown of pounds of coffee
imported into the United States with percentage of total trade, October
1790 to December 1791, compiled from American State Papers:
Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United
States, Commerce and Navigation (Buffalo, N.Y., 1998), 1: 203.
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Figure II
State-by-state breakdown of pounds of coffee
imported into the United States with percentage of total trade, October
1791 to December 1792, compiled from American State Papers: Commerce
and Navigation, 1: 163.
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Table I
Coffee Imports in Pounds into Pennsylvania by Region, including Percentage
of Total Trade, 1789–91
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1789–90
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1790–91
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British West Indies
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323,623
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155,222
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(23.2%)
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(10.7%)
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French West Indies
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826,663
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1,180,180
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(59.4%)
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(81.0%)
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Bourbon and Mauritius
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26,171
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—
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(1.9%)
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—
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Spanish West Indies
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2,986
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24,914
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(0.2%)
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(1.7%)
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Floridas and Louisiana
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8,554
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—
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(0.6%)
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—
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Dutch West Indies and
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American Colonies
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110,750
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82,086
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(8.0%)
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(5.6%)
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Cape of Good Hope
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—
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13,064
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—
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(0.9%)
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Danish West Indies
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75,947
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—
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(5.5%)
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—
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Swedish West Indies
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17,545
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1,692
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(1.2%)
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(0.1%)
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Totals
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1,392,239
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1,457,158
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(100.0%)
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(100.0%)
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Source: American State
Papers: Commerce and Navigation, 1: 83, 179.
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The riskiest way to deal
with complex regulations was to evade them through smuggling. Ash saw
advantages to this alternative in 1773, but also advised Brown & Birch
of some potential problems. Coffee was among Puerto Rico's principal
exports, yet Ash had nonetheless faced significant competition. He
described a "coast ... full of vessels that can supply them on better
terms than we," and suggested carrying at least one-third to
one-fourth the purchase price in cash as well as an "assortment of
very fine goods." Puerto Rican sellers had demanded payment in full in
goods or currency, and were unwilling to trade for samples—examples of
goods from future harvests—that Ash normally used to conduct business.
He also noted that his vessel, the Mary, drew too much draft for
Puerto Rico's shallow harbors. Ferrying coffee from coast to ship had
required thirteen of his "best men" to leave the ship, with the
remaining crew unguarded, "waiting the lucky or unlucky chance of a
moment."4
Ash recommended using hired hands to transfer goods in shallops, or flat
boats, from bays to larger ships anchored offshore. More laborers would
increase expenses. Yet Ash strongly advised the investment in local
manpower.
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4
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Some American merchants
continued smuggling after the Revolution, but many more evaded the spirit
of the law as they tenuously conformed to its strictures. These men seized
the chance of the moment to expand their businesses through international
competition and legal loopholes. At the close of the eighteenth century, the
British, French, and Spanish Caribbean all produced coffee, and the neutral
holdings of Denmark, Holland, and Sweden offered free ports that broadened
the possible trajectories of America's coffee investments further still (Figure
III).5
Because of the number of competing suppliers, coffee turned out to be less
a tale of contraband commerce than a story about when and why smuggling
would not have been necessary or profitable. The overwhelming success of
the American coffee trade in the decades after independence exemplifies
these opportunities and merchants' abilities to make the most of them.
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Figure III
H. G. Beenfeldt, The Port of Christiansted,
1815, watercolor, 30.0 cm x 41.0 cm. Three-masted schooners and
two-masted brigs and snow-brigs lie at anchor in the foreground, as do
two single-masted cutters (small coastal vessels used for local
transport). Fort Christiansvaren appears in the center of the image,
with troops practicing musters behind. To the left of the fort are the
town church and customshouse, where all shipments arriving into or
leaving the port were weighed and recorded. To the right is a cargo
being prepared for transport.
Large barrels arrive by oxcart. These could be
butts and hogsheads if carrying rum and hold 108 and 54 gallons,
respectively. If transporting sugar, they are likely tons, which could
hold twenty hundredweights, or roughly 2,240 pounds. Smaller barrels,
hundredweights or quarters, transported coffee and molasses as well as
sugar; hundredweights ran 112 pounds each, quarters were, as the name
implies, one-fourth that size, or 28 pounds each. Coffee could also be
shipped in bags or, in very small quantities, appear as individual
pounds. Courtesy, Danish National Archives, Copenhagen.
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Trade in tropical commodities was profoundly affected by
the outbreak of the American Revolution. The British West Indies were key
players in the economies of most North American port cities before the war,
accounting for 20 to 35 percent of all inbound and outbound vessels to
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston from 1768 to 1772 (Table
II).
Political theorist Edmund Burke described the relationship between the
colonies of North America and the Caribbean as "so interwoven that the
attempt to separate them would tear to pieces the contexture of the whole
and, if not entirely destroy, would much depreciate the value of all the
parts" of Britain's economic empire. The commercial disruptions caused
by war substantiated Burke's predictions. Though Britain tried to supplant
American trade after 1776, its efforts fell woefully short; ships from the
British Isles arrived only sporadically in the West Indies and often with
cargoes that colonial residents deemed entirely insufficient. Food
shortages repeatedly ravaged the Leeward Islands because of their proximity
to foreign colonies, the sugar monoculture, and a reliance on external food
supplies. On Montserrat whites and slaves alike suffered from malnutrition:
"for three successive Days, Hundreds of People came to Town in search
of ... a Morsel of Bread & returned Empty." And though Governor
Hay of Barbados wrote Parliament that supplies were more than adequate,
members of the British navy disagreed; General William Howe, in charge of
military operations in North America during the Revolution, found almost no
provisions on the island: "They have not ... a single cask of salt
provisions ... and are in the greatest want."6
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6
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Table II
Comparison of the Caribbean Provision Trade for Leading Colonial Port
Cities, 1768–72 (values given in tons and percentage that represents a
city's total trade in that year)
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Boston
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New
York
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Philadelphia
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Charleston
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1768 inbound
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10,811
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6,301
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11,677
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8,238
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(33.8%)
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(28.8%)
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(33.3%)
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(26.1%)
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1768 outbound
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10,095
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6,981
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12,019
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5,808
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(29.9%)
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(9.6%)
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(32.1%)
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(18.4%)
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1769 inbound
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10,495
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6,964
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11,726
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6,123
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(25.9%)
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(25.9%)
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(27.6%)
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(21.0%)
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1769 outbound
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8,995
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5,446
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11,114
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5,807
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(24.2%)
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(20.1%)
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(27.1%)
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(18.6%)
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1770 inbound
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11,088
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8,695
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14,946
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9,563
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(28.9%)
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(34.0%)
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(31.5%)
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(34.7%)
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1770 outbound
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8,248
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7,005
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13,842
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7,374
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(22.3%)
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(26.3%)
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(29.5%)
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(24.6%)
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1771 inbound
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8,586
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8,191
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13,397
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8,208
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(21.7%)
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(32.7%)
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(32.1%)
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(26.8%)
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1771 outbound
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9,171
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7,708
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13,449
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6,131
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(23.6%)
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(30.2%)
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(31.2%)
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(19.6%)
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1772 inbound
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12,649
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8,170
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12,947
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6,121
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(29.0%)
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(28.3%)
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(30.6%)
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(20.4%)
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1772 outbound
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10,073
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8,076
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15,674
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5,749
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(23.7%)
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(28.7%)
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(34.2%)
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(18.2%)
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Source:
Summaries of topsails, sloops, and tonnage for the foreign and British
West Indies for each year, Customs 16–1—America,
1768–1772, National Archives, Kew, Eng.
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When the war ended, many
in North America and the British Caribbean hoped business would return to
normal, yet two stumbling blocks stood in the way. First, United States–British
West Indian trade using American vessels was banned; second, shipments to
the United States were to be taxed as foreign exports. The latter issue was
more easily resolved. A July 2, 1783, order in council authorized the
exportation of coffee, rum, sugar, molasses, cocoa nuts, ginger, and
allspice to the United States and the importation of American lumber,
flour, bread, grain, vegetables, and livestock under the same tariff
regulations as British colonies; though these commodities could now move to
and from the United States, they could still do so only on British vessels.7
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Several of the island
governments protested. The Assembly of Barbados sent petitions to the
Society of West India Merchants and Planters in London, decrying the
limitations on American commerce as untenable and ruinous. Jamaica's
planters warned Governor Archibald Campbell that refusal to allow American
shipping would result in not only food shortages but also a lack of lumber
to build shipping casks, hindering planters' ability to ship local produce
abroad. When Campbell rejected their requests, Jamaican planters also
turned to the Society of West India Merchants, which rallied behind their
cause, arguing for the reinstitution of prerevolutionary patterns of trade
and requesting permission for free intercourse on American vessels. Their
appeals to Parliament, however, were as unsuccessful as those from
Barbados. Jamaica's House of Assembly tried again in November 1783,
petitioning the governor to permit American shipping for at least a
transition period of nine months, but Campbell downplayed their fears,
replying: "I flatter myself, however, that from the early and repeated
applications I have made to the Governors of Nova Scotia and Canada, for an
immediate supply of such articles as we most want in this country, and from
the encouragement given to British merchants, the articles enumerated in
your address will soon be lowered in their price, and the apprehensions of
a scarcity happily removed." Particularly galling to the more
established British islands of Jamaica and Barbados, Parliament gave
limited free port status to the former French islands of Dominica, Grenada,
and Saint Vincent in compensation for occupation during the American
Revolution. Planters bitterly complained that, rather than bolster the
islands' own economies, free port status instead facilitated the
clandestine importation of French coffee and sugar, especially from Saint
Domingue. "Above 20 times the quantity of produce," they grumbled,
"has been exported from these islands since their conquest than ever
grew upon them."8
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8
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As privation in the
Caribbean colonies grew, some island governors proved more sympathetic than
Campbell. Though official policy excluded American ships from trading in
British West Indian harbors, governors could grant special concessions, or
the temporary suspension of certain parts of the Navigation Acts, when
doing so was deemed essential to a colony's well-being. As might be
expected, the mother country and its colonies often defined essential and
well-being differently, yet the practice nonetheless became so widespread
that, in 1786, Parliament passed an act of indemnification to annually
exempt governors from prosecution for Navigation Act violations.9
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Governors suspended the
Navigation Acts for various reasons. In a few cases, such as that of
Barbados, successive governors simply prolonged special concessions
indefinitely by extending the original document each time it was due to
expire. Other governors responded to genuine need. Though Governor Campbell
of Jamaica was unwilling to suspend the ban on American shipping in 1783, a
series of earthquakes and hurricanes during the next three years forced his
successor, John Dalling, to reconsider this position. The Pennsylvania
Gazette report on the first of these hurricanes described the
devastation of the island's southern port cities in July 1784: "The
harbour of Kingston and Port-Royal, on the morning after the hurricane,
exhibited the most striking picture of desolation: His Majesty's ships Janus
and Iphegenia, the Vernon armed store-ship, Nelly (Dawson) and some small
craft, being the only vessels that rode out the storm. Every other in these
harbours were either sunk or driven ashore, and all of them dismasted. To
give perfect account of the loss is a task at present, impossible; many
vessels being absolutely sunk, of which no vestige remains, but the heads
of masts that appear above water." Even under true duress, however,
Dalling lifted only the ban on imports of American food and lumber; the prohibition
on British West Indian exports to the United States in American ships
remained in effect.10
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Special concessions
artificially reinstated some lines of prerevolutionary commerce between
North America and the British Caribbean. They ensured that American food
and supplies reach the West Indies, but were less successful in supplying
American merchants with the tropical commodities their growing reexport
businesses demanded. Richard Henry Lee lauded the lobbying efforts of
British and American merchants in London to lift "all the silly,
malign commercial restraints upon our trade with their [British] W. India
Islands," yet most politicians were more pessimistic. Benjamin
Harrison, of Virginia, cautioned that "the determinations of the ...
English respecting our [W. Indies] trade is really alarming and in the end
will prove ruinous to us if not counteracted." Thomas Jefferson
worried that "commerce is got & getting into vital agonies by our
exclusion from the West Indies," and James Madison concluded that
"we have lost by the Revolution our trade to the West Indies, the only
[branch] which yielded us a favorable balance of trade without having
gained new channels to compensate it." When diplomatic negotiations
failed to produce desired results, America responded to British
restrictions with financial retaliation. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and
Rhode Island all banned British vessels from loading American goods onto
their vessels or from unloading American produce from one state into
another state under penalty of condemnation. Maryland, North Carolina, and
Pennsylvania imposed taxes for the docking of British vessels in their
ports, and most New England states added taxes to goods arriving by British
carriers. Almost all states applied higher duties to British sugar, coffee,
and rum than to their French counterparts. In 1789 Congress standardized
the arrangement, voting to impose "an increased duty of tonnage ... on
all foreign ships and other vessels that shall load in the United
States" arriving from places where "the United States are not
permitted to carry their own produce."11
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Despite the best efforts
of American merchants and West Indian planters, the July 2, 1783, order in
council remained officially unchanged for almost a decade. The British
Caribbean colonies could legally import and export certain products, coffee
among them, yet more than three-quarters of prerevolutionary trade between
the two regions had been carried in American vessels. Parliament offered
the opportunity, but not the means, and the resulting cost of British
shipping increased the price of coffee enough to encourage American buyers
to look for alternatives. They had several options. Though Britain had
already declared itself uninterested in negotiating with the United States,
and France allowed only limited access to its Caribbean colonies in the
immediate postwar period, some hoped these restrictions would encourage
traders to look beyond traditional commercial comfort zones. "The
Dutch and Danes," John Adams asserted, "will avail themselves of
every error that may be committed by France or England. It is good to have
a variety of strings to our bow."12
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It was reasonable for American merchants to expect a
warm welcome in Amsterdam, given the Netherlands' long-standing commercial
and military rivalry with Britain. The colonial officials of Dutch Saint
Eustatius had been the first governmental body to recognize the legitimacy
of North American claims to independence.13
Competition in the carrying trade, however, proved an intransigent barrier
in United States–Dutch trade relations in the Caribbean. Holland
agreed to allow American trade with its West Indian colonies of Saint
Eustatius, Curaçao, and Saint Martin, as well as the Dutch "colonies
upon the continent, Surinam, Berbice, Demarara, and Essequibo," which,
though "a greater distance from us ... can not subsist without our
[American] horses, lumber, and provisions." Yet the Dutch limited what
Americans could bring to the colonies and what they could take in return,
especially coffee and sugar. The United States could import Caribbean
coffee duty-free, but had to pay import taxes on East Indian coffees, and
ship all tropical commodities, except molasses, in Dutch vessels. Some
speculated that, though only molasses could be directly shipped in American
vessels, "quantities of sugar, coffee, and other produce are always
smuggled, as they say."14
Illegal trading may have supplied some coffee, but American merchants
continued their search for a reliable, legal source.
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Benjamin Franklin, acting
in 1782 as a member of a European-based commission appointed by Congress to
reopen commercial and diplomatic relations, approached the Portuguese
ambassador. He inquired about potential American trade with Brazilian
coffee plantations, but was told that Portugal "admitted no nation to
the Brazills." Franklin tried a different tack, asking if the United
States might use Portugal's "Western Islands," such as Madeira or
the Canaries, as a "depot" for importing Brazilian "sugars,
coffee, cotton, and cocoa." The Portuguese ambassador responded
enthusiastically, suggesting that, if approved by his government, "they
could furnish us [the United States] with these articles at Lisbon fifteen
per cent cheaper than the English could from their West India
Islands." Unfortunately, the Portuguese court rejected the proposal.15
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The commission also
appealed to Spain. Another member of the commission, John Adams, wrote the
Count de Sanafee, Spain's Paris-based minister, in August 1783 to ask
"whether it might not be possible to persuade his court that it would
be good policy for them to allow ... the United States of America a free
port in some of their islands at least, if not upon the continent of South
America?" Sanafee's response was vague; rather than address the legal
and diplomatic aspects of commercial ties between the United States and
Spain, he insinuated that "his court would be afraid of the
measure" as "free ports were nests of smugglers" and
"afforded many facilities of illicit trade (le commerce interlope)."
Adams countered with an alternative similar to the one Franklin had offered
Portugal. If American ships could not directly import Spanish colonial
coffee, could the produce "be carried to the free ports of France,
Holland, and Denmark, in the West Indies ... in Spanish vessels, that they
might be there purchased by Americans?" Sanafee simply replied that
"he could not pretend to give any opinion upon any of these points,
but that we must negociate them at Madrid."16
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Having exhausted the most
likely suspects, the United States Commissioners' quest for tropical
trading partners led them to some very strange bedfellows indeed. In 1784
the Pennsylvania Gazette hinted that a commercial treaty between the
United States and Russia might be in the offing. Though Russia did not
possess a West Indian colony at the time, according to "letters from
Holland ... a negociation is on foot between the Empress of Russia and
their High Mightinesses the States-General" for the "ceding to
the former (for an equivalent) an island in the West-Indies (believed to be
Saint Martin's)." Russia, the article suggested, had "long wished
for a settlement in the Mediterranean and West-Indies" to "extend
that commerce which they have lately laid plans for carrying on to every
part of the globe."17
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Saint Martin was the
smallest shared colony in the Caribbean. Holland controlled sixteen square
miles and the port city of Philipsburg in the south; France, the remaining
twenty-one square miles to the north. Adams included the tiny divided
colony in the commission's list of possible West Indian partners in 1783,
but noted, "Saint Martin is divided between the French ... and the
Dutch," and with few established towns and less successful
agriculture, "it does not flourish." Even if Russia had been
successful, Saint Martin could not have produced the coffee American
traders desired; at best it may have been a clearing station, similar to
Dutch Saint Eustatius or Danish Saint Croix, for redistributing the riches
of the region beyond the legal limitations of metropolitan policies.18
The Pennsylvania Gazette article unfortunately recorded only
Russia's West Indian ambitions, and not Holland's response. In January 1785
larger events—Holland's alignment with Prussia to declare war on
Austria and Russia—would intercede before any possible sale could be
completed.
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17
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American coffee traders,
especially those in Philadelphia, had better success in the Danish
Caribbean colony of Saint Croix (Figure
IV).19
Almost all Philadelphia-bound coffee shifted to the Saint Croix port of Christiansted
in 1781 and 1782, and nearly all other commodities imported into
Philadelphia followed suit. The volume and variety clearing this one port
obviously meant these goods were Danish reexports, since Saint Croix did
not produce the western and southern European wares packed beside the
sugar, molasses, coffee, and rum headed to Philadelphia.20
American interests in Saint Croix were admittedly fleeting, yet Christiansted
played a key role for the brief time between British prewar supplies and
French free ports of the mid-1780s. The Danish crown briefly attempted to
assert a royal monopoly on the colony's shipping in 1781, yet the
reassertion of Saint Croix's neutral status in 1782 and 1783 made it the
ideal clearinghouse, not only for coffee bound for Philadelphia but also
for almost everything else as well. Table
III
compares the numbers of ships that sailed from Christiansted with those
from other ports and demonstrates that, though almost three-quarters of the
ships carrying coffee to Philadelphia in 1781 arrived from Saint Domingue,
more than 60 percent switched to Christiansted in 1782. Most ships
continued to come from Saint Croix during the first quarter of 1783, though
by June Cap-Français and Port-au-Prince reemerged as principal coffee
shippers.21
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18
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Figure IV
At approximately eighty square miles (or
twenty-six miles long and seven miles wide), Saint Croix is the largest
of the West Indian colonies settled by Denmark. Christiansted is its
largest port and served briefly as the capital of the Danish West
Indies in the eighteenth century. Saint Croix is located thirty-five
miles south of Saint Thomas and Saint John, and approximately eighty
miles southeast of Puerto Rico. Its principal industries were sugar and
rum, though the island served as a strategic reexport port for a much
wider range of commodities. Drawn by Rebecca L. Wrenn.
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Table III
Numbers of Ships into Philadelphia from Principal Ports, 1781–83
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1781
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1782
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1783
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Danish ports
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Christiansted, Saint Croix
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15
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126
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66
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Saint Thomas
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10
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5
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15
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French ports
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Cap-Français, Saint Domingue
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22
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1
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13
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L'Orient, Saint Barthélemy
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6
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6
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—
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Port-au-Prince, Saint Domingue
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10
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4
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12
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British ports
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London, England
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—
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—
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12
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Spanish ports
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Cadiz, Spain
|
11
|
1
|
—
|
|
Havana, Cuba
|
44
|
20
|
13
|
|
Portuguese ports
|
|
Lisbon, Portugal
|
—
|
—
|
10
|
|
American ports
|
|
Bordentown, N.J.
|
—
|
—
|
22
|
|
Boston
|
6
|
2
|
15
|
|
Hamburg, Pa.
|
—
|
47
|
1
|
|
New Castle, Del.
|
14
|
5
|
7
|
|
Lewistown, Maine
|
1
|
1
|
12
|
|
New Jersey
|
4
|
20
|
12
|
|
New York
|
—
|
—
|
50
|
|
Rhode Island
|
3
|
1
|
10
|
|
Wilmington, Del.
|
16
|
18
|
11
|
|
All other ports
(overall)
|
29
|
32
|
244
|
|
|
Total number of inward clearing vessels
|
191
|
289
|
525
|
|
|
|
Notes:
The year 1783 includes only the first three quarters. Only ports with ten
or more vessels in a given year are specified by name. For a complete
listing of all ports engaged in Philadelphia's coffee trade, see footnote
21.
|
|
Source:
Records of the Office of the Comptroller General, Port of Philadelphia
Records, Registers of Duties Paid on Imported Goods (1781–1788), 6
vols., Record Group 4, Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg, Pa.
|
|
|
|
France further enticed American business to its colonies
in 1784 and 1785 by opening five West Indian free ports, including three in
Saint Domingue, to American shipping and abolishing bans on the importation
of flour and other food staples. Historians have credited these relaxations
for the extraordinary rise in American exports to the French Caribbean by
the mid-1780s, but just as important for a burgeoning United States
tropical produce reexport business, American traders turned increasingly to
French colonies for their West Indian imports as well. For those dealing in
coffee, the decision is easy to understand. French coffee already had a
sound reputation for quality and taste, with many consumers preferring it
to British coffee even before the war. Moreover, in the 1780s and early
1790s, the French island of Saint Domingue ranked as the world's leading
coffee producer, resulting in a price economy of scale unrivaled by others.22
Had the application of Britain's tariff on foreign produce not artificially
inflated the price of French coffee to almost double that of British
manufacture, more French coffee would likely have made its way to American markets
before 1776. In February 1793 the French Council opened all its West Indian
ports to American vessels, fulfilling a decade-long objective in American
foreign policy. For the next ten years, with two important exceptions, the
French Antilles supplied from half to four-fifths of all coffee brought
into the United States.23
Even the two aberrations, 1798–99 and 1803, furnish good examples of
how rapidly American merchants shifted between coffee suppliers as well as
how quickly they could return to preexisting patterns of trade once crisis
was averted.
|
19
|
|
The first drop in French
coffee exports to America occurred during the Quasi War with France. In 1798
and 1799, the United States temporarily closed all trade to France and its
colonies in retaliation for increasing seizures of American ships on
charges of privateering. France's increased aggression came in reaction to
American efforts to reestablish commercial relations with Britain. Under a
draft treaty negotiated by John Jay, Britain agreed to relinquish its posts
in the American Northwest by July 1, 1796, but retained rights to trade
furs in the region. The British offered compensation for ships seized in
the West Indies as a result of their orders in council, though any
financial gains were offset by their requirement that the United States
recompense British creditors for prerevolutionary debts that remained
unpaid. Most troubling, however, the agreement required the United States
to forego its practice of neutral shipping during the current war between
France and England, and for two years after the war's conclusion. Moreover,
it opened British West Indian trade to American ships under seventy tons,
yet prohibited these ships from exporting coffee, sugar, cocoa, or cotton
to the rest of the world, or even to America itself. A treaty that asked so
much of the United States and gave so little reinvigorated widespread
hostility among merchants already predisposed against Britain. Congress
struck the provision on West Indies imports to America, though they
approved the treaty limits restricting American imports of
Caribbean-produced coffee, sugar, molasses, cocoa, and cotton to American
consumption and prohibiting reshipment of West Indies produce in American
ships "either from his Majesty's islands, or from the United States to
any part of the world except for the United States."24
This last provision severely compromised the contributions the British
islands could make to America's reexport trade in tropical goods.
|
20
|
|
Through a circular letter
to Congress, American importers bitterly expressed their dissatisfaction.
"Courts of France & Great Britain particularly the
latter, hath discovered the utmost Jealousy of the commercial
Prosperity of America," the importers wrote. "They have it in
contemplation not only to cramp & restrain our commerce, by prohibiting
an intimate & extensive intercourse between America and their West
India possessions, but to deprive us as much as possible of the carrying
trade by prohibiting any American Vessel from importing into G. Britain any
commodities, but those of the State to which it belongs."25
In this sense the Jay Treaty, intended to encourage American commerce with
the British Caribbean, had the opposite effect. Imports of British colonial
coffee for United States consumers increased slightly after 1796, yet
traders continued to base their overseas ventures on the coffee of other
nations.
|
21
|
|
The Jay Treaty posed
additional problems beyond the constriction of American trade routes. Once
news of the Anglo-American alliance reached Paris, France rejected claims
of United States neutrality, and began seizing American ships bound for
England. France had certainly accused the United States of privateering
before 1798. In the last quarter of 1796, for example, customs agents
indicted forty-four American ships for illegal trading in Saint Domingue
alone, but in 1797 more than three hundred American ships suffered this
fate, with Saint Domingue and Guadeloupe taking the most aggressive
stances. Rarely were ships' crews arrested or endangered; more often, port
authorities condemned ships accused of illegal activity or forced them to
sell their cargo before being permitted to leave port.26
|
22
|
|
During these two years of
strained French relations, American merchants used a variety of strategies
to fill the commercial gap. They did not return to former British Caribbean
suppliers; despite British legislative efforts, coffee exports from the
British West Indies actually decreased by 43.4 percent from 1797 to 1798.
Imports of British East Indian coffee rose slightly, but still amounted to less
than 1 percent of total imports. Philadelphia took some advantage of the
opportunity Spain offered from 1798 to 1799, increasing coffee imports from
Havana and other Spanish Caribbean ports by almost 4 million pounds during
these two years. Similarly, the Danish and Swedish West Indies also saw
modest growth in coffee exports to the United States, though their
positions relative to the American coffee trade overall remained low.27
|
23
|
|
Most American coffee
merchants turned instead to the Dutch West and East Indies. Whether the
coffee coming from the Dutch West Indies in 1798 had originated somewhere
else is difficult to determine. The Dutch produced some coffee, yet not in
quantities sufficient to account for the leap from 3.9 million pounds in
1797 to more than 10 million pounds the following year. It is possible that
Dutch merchants reshipped Saint Domingue coffee to the United States during
the Quasi War. Though the United States cut off trade relations with the
French colonies, the Dutch did not, and some Philadelphia buyers complained
that Dutch competition drove up the price of French West Indian coffee.
"There are other things that attend this [coffee] trade, that should
not pass unnoticed: The Danes, or rather Dutch, under Danish colours, are
powerful and jealous competitors for a share in this commerce: Their flags
being also neutral, they swarm here [Saint Domingue] from St. Thomas's
& c.—and ... endeavor to undersell us. The usual custom among the
sellers of this article, when they arrive in town, is, at first to go into
all the American stores and learn the highest price they will give, and
then go and sell to a Dane for six deniers more." Coffee shipped from
the East Indies was more likely of Dutch manufacture. From just under 2.5
million pounds in 1796–97, Dutch East Indies exports to the United
States rose to 6.4 million pounds in 1798 and almost 12 million pounds by
1800 (Table
IV).28
|
24
|
|
Table IV
United States Coffee Imports in Pounds by Caribbean Region, 1789–1806
|
|
|
Swedish
|
Danish
|
Dutch
|
British
|
French
|
Spanish
|
Other
|
Total
|
|
West
Indies
|
West
Indies
|
West
Indies
|
West
Indies
|
West
Indies
|
West
Indies
|
|
|
|
|
|
1794–95
|
329,342
|
428,596
|
2,586,783
|
5,001,930
|
43,464,561
|
492,817
|
1,656,947
|
53,960,976
|
|
1795–96
|
314,140
|
961,706
|
7,751,433
|
4,480,463
|
44,688,310
|
681,986
|
2,262,457
|
61,160,495
|
|
1796–97
|
392,551
|
943,880
|
3,783,313
|
1,695,665
|
37,164,707
|
867,768
|
4,643,618
|
49,491,502
|
|
1797–98
|
13,782
|
109,027
|
3,863,472
|
1,372,603
|
42,290,705
|
1,109,558
|
8,963,478
|
57,722,625
|
|
1798–99
|
175,213
|
2,033,108
|
10,345,612
|
778,571
|
4,918,422
|
3,919,287
|
7,817,357
|
29,987,570
|
|
1799–1800
|
101,604
|
605,304
|
3,862,539
|
805,041
|
26,055,184
|
2,918,108
|
13,042,165
|
47,389,945
|
|
1800–1801
|
97,254
|
1,631,963
|
1,993,444
|
1,188,795
|
37,975,598
|
680,103
|
13,816,747
|
57,383,904
|
|
1801–2
|
53,496
|
200,594
|
1,388,881
|
1,764,391
|
25,870,126
|
591,445
|
11,017,928
|
40,886,861
|
|
1802–3
|
327,384
|
417,034
|
723,501
|
1,899,734
|
8,658,088
|
452,349
|
4,350,403
|
16,828,493
|
|
1803–4
|
698,469
|
2,116,340
|
7,979,593
|
1,997,162
|
19,605,955
|
4,239,074
|
12,001,789
|
48,638,382
|
|
1804–5
|
273,442
|
2,390,745
|
992,853
|
289,206
|
27,453,284
|
5,411,664
|
18,048,130
|
54,859,324
|
|
1805–6
|
66,833
|
3,585,073
|
2,218,818
|
1,440,658
|
29,679,201
|
5,102,115
|
13,878,954
|
55,971,652
|
|
|
|
Source: American State
Papers: Commerce and Navigation, 1: 350,
367, 394, 402, 434, 441, 464, 471, 478, 514, 521, 566, 576, 580, 629,
635, 676, 682, 706, 712, 757, 760.
|
|
|
|
Though Dutch East Indian
coffee levels remained high after 1800, those in the West Indies dropped as
soon as the United States reestablished trade relations with the French.
Again, within a year, merchants adjusted their commercial links and imports
from the Dutch Caribbean dwindled to their lowest point in 1802, whereas
imports from the French West Indies leapt from 5 million to 26 million
pounds and from there to almost 38 million pounds in 1800–1801. After
two years of the United States embargo, France agreed to end hostilities
and French colonial coffee imports climbed from 16 to 55 percent of total
American coffee imports.
|
25
|
|
The only other
significant drop in French Caribbean coffee imports occurred in 1803,
during the waning years of the revolution in Saint Domingue. When that
conflict erupted, the island dominated world production of sugar and coffee
and was a major supplier of indigo and cotton. Historians have focused on
the revolution's effect on the sugar industry, in large part because that
was where most destruction occurred, yet Saint Domingue's share of the
global coffee market was proportionately twice that of its share in total
sugar production, and coffee growing sectors of the island sustained less
damage and recovered more quickly. Did the United States import Haiti's
coffee and, if so, how did it balance commercial and diplomatic interests?
Officially, the United States refused to recognize the legitimacy of an
independent Haiti until 1862, though Presidents Washington, Adams, and
Jefferson all intermittently continued to permit travel to Haiti.
Ostensibly, most ships traveled under the guise of assisting Saint
Domingue's colonists during the slave revolution, but they rarely returned
empty-handed. More than once during the British occupation of Saint
Domingue, the need for supplies outweighed Britain's stance against United
States–French colonial trade. British military leaders repeatedly
opened the island's ports themselves, permitting payment for American goods
in locally produced sugar, coffee, rum, and cotton.29
Yet Haiti never appears in American customs papers as a port with which
American merchants conducted business; it is possible that, before 1804,
customs officials collapsed exports brought back from the island with those
from the rest of the French Caribbean, since regional sectors were rarely
divided by island (Figure
V).
|
26
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Figure V
Comparison of pounds of coffee imported from
the French colonies into the United States and total pounds of coffee
imported into the United States, 1795–1805, compiled from American
State Papers: Commerce and Navigation, 1: 350, 367, 394, 402, 434,
441, 464, 471, 478, 514, 521, 560, 566, 576, 580, 629, 635, 676, 682,
706, 712.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Dutch once again
temporarily replaced French Caribbean coffee exports during the 1803
disruption. Dutch West Indian shipments to the United States rose by 7.2
million pounds, whereas those of their Indian Ocean colonies increased by
almost 7 million pounds. The balance, just over 7 million pounds, came from
an unlikely source—the French East Indian colonies of Bourbon
(present-day Réunion) and Mauritius. This coffee was clearly reexported
from French, British, and Dutch East Indian colonies, as 1803 was the only
year that any appreciable amount of coffee came through these two
locations. By 1804 patterns again reverted and, for the following two
years, the French West Indies produced almost half of all American coffee
imports and reexports single-handedly.
|
27
|
|
The last shift during the
period under consideration came in 1806 when the Spanish Caribbean and
Latin America finally supplanted the French Atlantic colonies, with much
longer repercussions, first as the United States' and ultimately as the
world's dominant coffee supplier. Commercial and diplomatic relations
between the Spanish colonies and the United States also had a complicated
history. During the closing years of the American Revolution, Philadelphia
established a thriving commerce with Spanish possessions, especially
Havana; forty-four vessels arrived from that city to Philadelphia in 1781,
representing the single largest concentration of Spanish shipping into any
North American port city, with twenty additional voyages the following year.30
But in 1784 Spain banned all trade to Cuba and the island's governor issued
orders for American boats to leave Havana immediately. When Spain reopened
Havana to United States shipping in 1785, American hopes were high.
Governor Count Galvez was considered a "confirmed friend of the United
States" who "proceeded to shew every favor to the Americans
there, by counteracting the very rigorous conduct of the former Governor of
Cuba towards our countrymen trading to that island." Galvez's
appointment in Cuba, however, was brief. He was transferred to Mexico and
his successor proved far less receptive to American interests.
|
28
|
|
Subsequent restrictions
against American shipping precluded any possibility of reviving a viable
American coffee trade until, along with Britain, Spain experimented by
reducing limitations in 1792 in an effort to attract American business away
from the French. When open trade policies did not produce immediate
results, however, Spain lost no time in again closing Havana's harbors. In
March 1792 the Pennsylvania Gazette reprinted an excerpt written by
an American merchant in Cuba, shocked at the immediacy of Spain's reversal
in trade policies. "Yesterday a most extraordinary order was issued by
the Governor relative to all foreign vessels in port; the most of them are
ordered away in six days, and the remainder in eight, so that no vessel can
stay longer than that time in harbour. This your own judgment will tell you
is the same as a prohibition to all strange vessels; and there is another
circumstance that makes the order doubly hard, which is, that all
foreigners who arrive must value themselves on a Spaniard, and all their
business transacted by him and in his name."31
|
29
|
|
Trade between Spain and
the United States remained negligible until 1798 when, for one year, Spain
again aligned with Britain to open its Caribbean and mainland ports to
American ships, with the stipulation that gold could not leave the Spanish
Empire under any circumstances. When it became clear that American vessels
consistently violated the ban, Spain rescinded the act and closed their
ports again the following year. In all likelihood the enormous imbalance of
trade between French and other nations' Caribbean colonies could not have
been rectified by the British and Spanish port openings of 1792 and 1798;
the French Caribbean continued to account for more American imports than
the colonies of any other empire before 1805 and, for many years in the
case of coffee, more than all other empires combined. But changes in
American shipping rights resulted in rapid mercantile reassessments and
realignments. When the French and British attempted to reassert control
over American shipping in 1806, Spain opted to open its ports to American
vessels. The result was an almost 400 percent drop in American imports of
French colonial coffee, and the Spanish West Indies, for the first time,
emerged as North America's dominant supplier (Table
V).32
The most dramatic developments in Spain's coffee industry were yet to come;
after the abolition of the slave trade and ultimately of slavery in the
French and British islands, the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of Puerto
Rico, Cuba, and especially Brazil dominated the global coffee market.
|
30
|
|
Table V
Percentages of Domestic and Foreign Coffee Importation, 1794–1806
|
|
|
Total coffee imports in
pounds
|
Percentage imported in
American vessels
|
Percentage imported in
foreign vessels
|
|
|
|
1794–95
|
53,960,976
|
—
|
—
|
|
1795–96
|
61,141,051
|
—
|
—
|
|
1796–97
|
49,491,502
|
93.5%
|
6.5%
|
|
1797–98
|
57,722,625
|
89.8
|
10.2
|
|
1798–99
|
29,978,570
|
—
|
—
|
|
1799–1800
|
47,389,946
|
91.3
|
8.7
|
|
1800–1801
|
57,383,904
|
88.3
|
11.7
|
|
1801–2
|
40,886,861
|
88.9
|
11.1
|
|
1802–3
|
16,828,493
|
79.4
|
20.6
|
|
1803–4
|
48,638,382
|
98.9
|
1.1
|
|
1804–5
|
56,141,320
|
80.5
|
19.5
|
|
1805–6
|
55,993,788
|
84.5
|
15.5
|
|
|
|
Note:
Imports by foreign and domestic shipping were not differentiated before
1797 or in the 1798–99 records.
|
|
Source: American State
Papers: Commerce and Navigation, 1: 350,
367, 394, 402, 434, 441, 464, 471, 478, 514, 521, 566, 576, 580, 629,
635, 676, 682, 706, 712, 757, 760.
|
|
|
|
Given the legal and quasi-legal methods of importing
coffee, what role did the Captain Ashes of the world have to play after
America gained its independence? Philadelphia's newspapers included almost
weekly accounts of American ships stopped for suspected smuggling. For that
matter, French, British, and even Danish ships also appear in connection
with contraband coffee, though only a handful compared with the numbers of
vessels that legally entered the United States each year. Accounts of
coffee smuggling after the Revolution follow a pattern similar to what Ash
described in 1773, though none supplies as much detail. Ash's story after
he docked and unloaded his coffee is told by the Jamaican factors of Brown
& Birch, who wrote their Liverpool counterparts to confirm rumors that
the Mary had been condemned by Jamaican authorities for illegally
importing non-British coffee. It seems Ash miscalculated; rather than sell
his Spanish coffee in North America, he off-loaded his cargo in Kingston.
To undercut local producers, "Capt. Ash was imprudent enough to offer
coffee for sale in a publick company, under the current prices
considerably, which was taken notice of by a coffee planter there
present." Jamaican planters did not appreciate Ash's entrepreneurship
and reported the arrival of unlicensed foreign produce to local port
authorities who condemned the ship that same evening. When customs
officials boarded the vessel, they initially found only four casks of
coffee; after a more thorough examination, however, "the people's beds
[were] found full of beans" and notations on this concealment of cargo
turned up in the captain's log and first mate's journal, casting more than
a shadow of doubt on Ash's protestations of innocence. Brown & Birch
opted to pay the penalty for importing foreign coffee rather than forfeit
their ship; doing so also kept Ash out of prison, though they seemed less
concerned about his welfare than that of their vessel.33
|
31
|
|
The tactics used by
smugglers after 1783 would have sounded familiar to Ash, though the
definition of what constituted smuggling and the connotations of such
infractions differed in a postrevolutionary world. France and Britain tried
to influence American political allegiance by controlling the new nation's
trade routes. French ships stopped American vessels suspected of trading
with Britain and the British colonies and condemned the ship or confiscated
the cargo; British vessels did likewise to United States vessels in route
to France or the French West Indies. In February 1794, for example, the Pennsylvania
Gazette reprinted a letter from a merchant whose cargo, bound for
Bordeaux, was diverted to London. English merchants agreed to pay the going
rates for the ship's flour and rice, but a "quantity of coffee she had
on board, belonging to us, they were endeavoring to make French property
of."34
The following week an English judge condemned the ship's sugar and coffee
as French; according to British law, it was legally confiscated without
remuneration.
|
32
|
|
The news initiated a
backlash of public protest that argued British commercial incursions
threatened not only the American economy but also its international
reputation: "It can no longer be a doubt ... that the tendency
of certain measures is to shake the public credit of this country to the foundation—to
reduce the value of our exports more than one half ... to deprive us of
what every other nation has always considered as an advantage—our neutrality."
The efficacy of British efforts, however, depends on the reporter. In a
letter to Congress, President Thomas Jefferson made privateering seem
omnipresent: "Our coasts have been infested and our harbours watched
by private armed vessels ... They have captured, in the very entrance of
our habours, as well as on the high seas, not only the vessels of our
friends coming to trade with us, but our own also." Philadelphia's
merchants, by contrast, seemed more ambivalent. They accepted piracy and
privateering as inherent risks of transatlantic shipping; as long as
incidents remained sporadic and balance sheets ultimately fell in their
favor, the merchants were satisfied to count the increasing profits their
trade to the West Indies furnished:
That many of our vessels had been condemned in the West
Indies is certain; that others have been detained and ill treated, is
equally certain; that some have been legally condemned for breach of
revenue laws, cannot be denied; and that some have been falsely reported as
condemned, when they were not, is now well known. At any rate our shipping
is not all lost, as some would make us believe, for scarce a day passes,
without some arrivals from the West Indies, and this day there were five
reported on the coffee house books ... We are happy to hear that many of
our vessels from the West Indies return with full cargoes, or large sums of
money. 35
|
33
|
|
Those with principally
political or economic interests often interpreted the same events
differently. Jefferson's image of infested harbors says more about his
concerns for the acceptance of the United States in the international arena
and its ability to influence commercial activity, as well as about the
federal government's role as final arbiter of trade policies and
regulations, than it does about the economic realities surrounding the
complex issue of piracy in the era of the early Republic. The more
pragmatic attitudes of Philadelphia's merchant community better reflect how
the economic realities of trade had been restructured after independence.
Legislation from European powers determined who the United States conducted
business with, yet, rather than limiting traders' endeavors, such legislation
opened opportunities to explore and compare suppliers, to strike new
alliances, and to buy according to the best bargains. Philadelphia's
merchants did not assume an intractable position on issues such as piracy
and illicit trade. Occasional acts of depredation by pirates and privateers
were of far less consequence than the burgeoning trade on which these
piratical schemes preyed.
|
34
|
|
Michelle Craig McDonald is the Harvard
Business School Harvard-Newcomen Postdoctoral Fellow for 2005–6. She
would like to thank Alec Dun, David Hancock, Cathy Matson, Roderick
McDonald, Kathleen Montieth, Simon Smith, and an anonymous reader for the William
and Mary Quarterly for their close readings and suggestions, and Amanda
Moniz for alerting her to the case of Captain Ash at the National Archives
in Kew, England. A version of this article was presented at the Program in
Early American Economy and Society (PEAES) conference, "The Atlantic
Economy in the Era of 18th-Century Revolutions" in November 2003 and
benefited from the participation of those in attendance. Financial support
came from the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, PEAES at the
Library Company of Philadelphia, and the Harvard University International
Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World.
Notes
1 Captain Ash to
Messrs. Brown & Birch, Jan. 24, 1773, T1/504, National Archives, Kew,
Eng.
2 John J. McCusker
and Russell Menard, The Economy of British America, 1607–1789
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1985), 367.
3American State
Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United
States, 38 vols. (Buffalo, N.Y., 1998). The volumes of
greatest importance to this study are the first two volumes on Foreign
Relations and the two volumes on Commerce and Navigation. For Parliament's
decision to enforce the Navigation Acts, see American State Papers:
Commerce and Navigation, 1: 641. For a comparison of coffee imports
into several American states, see Figures I–II.
One-quarter of these imports were for American consumers; merchants reshipped
the balance to European markets. Percentages were derived by comparing
total coffee reexport revenue of $7,302,000 to total reexport revenue of
$28,533,000 for the years 1802 through 1804 as they appear in American
State Papers: Commerce and Navigation, 1: 642. Put in comparative
perspective, by the turn of the century, American coffee reexport revenues
exceeded those not only of tea but also of sugar and molasses. In fact
coffee surpassed all Caribbean imports but rum in profitability, and was
second only to dry goods in global American reexports.
4 If a
ship captain arrived to trade without sufficient goods or credit on hand to
pay in full for what he wanted, as happened esp. in unplanned voyages such
as Captain Ash's trip to Puerto Rico, it was common to supply samples as
payment for trade with a promissory note for the balance. If demand was
sufficiently high, however, sellers might demand immediate payment or a
higher percentage of the total price rather than rely on the promise of
future compensation. For a discussion of the use of promissory notes in
eighteenth-century West Indian commerce, see Thomas M. Doerflinger, A
Vigorous Spirit of Enterprise: Merchants and Economic Development in
Revolutionary Philadelphia (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1986), 97–126.
Though admittedly later in the nineteenth century, examples of planters
using future crops as leverage for current buying power can be found in the
letter books of Marlborough Plantation, Manchester Parish, Jamaica, esp.
"Correspondence of Mrs. B. Boucher regarding Mr. R. Boucher's Coffee
Estate, Marlborough Plantation, Manchester, 1827–37" (MS 337),
and Hermitage Estate, Saint Elizabeth Parish, Jamaica, Letter book of John
Wemyss, Jamaica, 1819–24 (MS 250), both in the collection of the
National Library, Kingston, Jamaica. For Ash's comments on significant
competition, see Captain Ash to Messrs. Brown & Birch, Jan. 24, 1773,
T1/504, National Archives. The unlucky chance Ash most feared was discovery
by cruisers from the Spanish Main that regularly patrolled the waters
surrounding Spain's island colonies in search of illicit trade (T1/504, 2,
ibid.).
5
Though Philadelphia brought in some coffee from the East Indies and other
sources, most continued to arrive from the Caribbean islands, rising from
just under 4.5 million pounds in 1791 to more than 50 million pounds a
decade later (American State Papers: Commerce and Navigation, 1:
203, 478, 512).
6
Figures for inbound and outbound vessels are based on Customs 16-1—America,
1768–1772, National Archives, reports of the Naval Officer submitted
annually to Parliament and permitting a comparison of basic import and
export data for all North American ports, the Floridas, and the Bahamas.
For a more specific breakdown by port city see Table
II. For Edmund Burke's description, see Herbert C.
Bell, "British Commercial Policy in the West Indies, 1783–93,"
English Historical Review 31, no. 123 (July 1916): 429.
For Britain's attempt to supplant American
trade, see "Lists of Imports in British Bottoms at Kingston, Jamaica,
during the War," T64/72, National Archives. The years of greatest
privation were 1776 to 1778, yet scarcities continued throughout the years
that followed. For discussions of the Jamaican House of Assembly's concerns
about staple imports, see House of Assembly, Jamaica, Journals of the
Honourable Assembly (Saint Jago de la Vega, Jamaica, 1811–1829),
7: 313, 314, 467, 577. For the effect on British West Indian production,
see "Imports into England from the West Indies, 1774–83,"
T38/269, National Archives. From 1775 to 1781, sugar production in the
British Caribbean declined by more than 50 percent. Coffee production fell
as well, primarily because of the shortfall resulting from the loss of the
North American market. Figures based on annual reports by the island Naval
Officer to the Jamaica House of Assembly reprinted in the House of
Assembly, Jamaica, Votes of the Honourable Assembly of Jamaica, 45
vols. (Saint Jago de la Vega, Jamaica, 1795–1835) for each year.
For food shortages on the Leeward Islands,
see Richard B. Sheridan, Doctors and Slaves: A Medical and Demographic
History of Slavery in the British West Indies, 1680–1834
(Cambridge, 1985), 156. For those suffering from malnutrition on
Montserrat, see Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, An Empire Divided: The
American Revolution and the British Caribbean (Philadelphia, 2000), 160–61.
7 See
Alice B. Keith, "Relaxations in the British Restrictions on the
American Trade with the British West Indies, 1783–1802," Journal
of Modern History 20, no. 1 (March 1948): 1–2; Selwyn H. H.
Carrington, "The United States and the British West Indian Trade, 1783–1807,"
in West Indies Accounts: Essays on the History of the British Caribbean
and the Atlantic Economy, ed. Roderick A. McDonald (Kingston, Jamaica, 1996),
149–51.
8 For
the unsuccessful appeals to Parliament, see "Resolutions of the
Committee of West India Planters and Merchants, Feb. 6, 1784," in
Vincent Harlow and Frederick Madden, eds., British Colonial Documents,
1774–1834 (Oxford, Eng., 1953), 256; O'Shaughnessy, Empire
Divided, 240.
Here is Jamaica's House of Assembly
petition: "We most humbly request that you will be pleased to permit
the importation from the United States of America in American bottoms, of
the articles enumerated in the proclamation of 2nd July last and also to
permit the produce of this Island to be exported in return for the space of
nine months" (Journals, 8, Nov. 19, 1783). Campbell's response appeared
the following day, Nov. 20, 1783. Planters were hardly impressed and formed
a committee to study the effects of declining North American trade on local
productivity. Though the report does not specify the source for its
figures, committee members argued that more than fifteen thousand slaves
had died in Jamaica as the result of starvation and insufficient nutrition,
resulting from recent hurricanes and "the exclusion of American
vessels" (report in Bell, English Historical Review 31: 440 n.
67). Richard Sheridan argues that the effect of British trade embargoes on
slave subsistence is, if anything, underestimated. Long periods of
nonimportation, limited European and British North American supplies, and
wave after wave of devastating hurricanes resulted in extraordinary damage,
not only in Jamaica but also throughout the British Caribbean (see Richard
B. Sheridan, "The Crisis of Slave Subsistence in the British West
Indies during and after the American Revolution," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 33, no. 4 [October
1976], esp. 621–22, 631–32). In February 1783 Parliament
voted to "permit the produce of such British islands as have been
captured by the enemy during the present war to import in neutral bottoms
... for a limited time" (Journals, 8, Feb. 12, 1783).
9The
Annual Register or a View of the History, Politics, and Literature for the
Year 1806 (London, 1808), 48: 81–89.
This source includes a comprehensive overview of British reactions to
reductions in restrictions on United States trade.
10 For
the extension of special concessions, see Carrington, "United States
and British West Indian Trade," 158. For the report on the first
Jamaican hurricane, see the (Philadelphia) Pennsylvania Gazette,
July 7, 1784. Here is Dalling's lift on the food and lumber ban: "On
account of the apprehensions of the inhabitants, from the late dreadful
hurricane, the Governor and Council have given permission, for the space of
four months from the date hereof, to vessels of all nations, and all sizes,
to bring in lumber and provisions—but not permitted to carry the
smallest quantity of produce from the island" ("Extract from a
Letter from Jamaica," Aug. 1, 1784; repr., Penn. Gaz., Oct. 6,
1784). Additional accounts of the 1785 hurricane appeared in Penn. Gaz.,
Oct. 12, Oct. 18, 1785. The 1786 hurricane was described in Penn. Gaz.,
June 21, 1786. The article includes a letter written from Elizabeth Town,
Jamaica, which voices some of the island residents' frustrations before the
ban on American imports was again lifted: "Our crops will be but
indifferent this year, principally owing to the last hurricane; we are also
visited with a great drought—the hand of Providence is heavy upon us.
That imp Flowerdew, of the customs, continues the implacable enemy of the
United States, and makes sad havock among your vessels."
11
Richard Henry Lee to James Madison, Nov. 20, 1784, in Robert A. Rutland et al.,
eds., The Papers of James Madison (Chicago, 1973), 8: 145; Benjamin
Harrison to Virginia Delegates, Oct. 3, 1783, ibid., 7: 366; Thomas
Jefferson to Madison, May 8, 1784, in Paul H. Smith et al., eds., Letters
of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789 (Washington, D.C., 1994), 21:
600; Madison to Lee, July 7, 1785, in James Madison Papers, Series 1:
General Correspondence, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. For higher
duties applied to British goods, see Vernon G. Setser, The Commercial
Reciprocity Policy of the United States, 1774–1829 (Philadelphia,
1937), 62–65; Carrington, "United States and British West Indian
Trade," 150–52. For Congress's standardization, see American
State Papers: Commerce and Navigation, 1: 6.
12 The
stipulations of July 2, 1783, were reinforced on Sept. 5 and Dec. 26, 1783
(see Lowell Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter Class in the British
Caribbean, 1763–1833 [New York, 1928], 180). John Adams to Robert
Livingston, July 16, 1783, in Francis Wharton, ed., The Revolutionary
Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States (Washington, D.C.,
1889), 6: 552.
13 Not
only was Saint Eustatius the first to acknowledge American autonomy, some—like
Virginia Governor Lord Dunmore—believed that the colony actively aided
the American cause by forwarding information about British military
strategy. "The Rebels receive all their information" from the
Caribbean, he cautioned, "it is first sent to the British West India
Islands and from thence to St. Eustatia" (Lord Dunmore to Lord George
Germain, July 31, 1776, in William Bell Clark and William James Morgan,
eds., Naval Documents of the American Revolution [Washington, D.C., 1970],
5: 1313–14. See also O'Shaughnessey, Empire Divided, 214). The
province of Holland voted to support the United States as a sovereign
nation in March 1782; other Dutch provinces soon followed suit.
14 For
trade with West Indian colonies, see John Adams to Robert Livingston, July
30, 1783, in RDC, 6: 618. For Dutch limitations, see "Plan of a Treaty
with Holland," Sept. 4, 1778, ibid., 2: 789–98; J. Adams to
Livingston, July 23, July 31, 1783, ibid., 6: 591–95, 621–24. The
initial draft treaty between the United States and Holland in 1778 did not
include commodity restrictions on imports and exports; these restrictions
were added at Holland's insistence. Holland maintained a monopoly on the
last refining stages for all the sugar cultivated on Dutch Caribbean
islands and considered the increasing number of sugar refineries in North
America—including several in Philadelphia—a threat to Dutch
control of the industry. From 1770 to 1785, Philadelphia opened two sugar
refineries; added to the two operating before the American Revolution,
these represented a significant increase in the city's sugar manufacturing
capabilities. The number of sugar refineries is compared in Constables
Returns for the City of Philadelphia, 1775, Philadelphia City Archives, and
Edmund Hogan, The Prospect of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1795). One
of Philadelphia's earliest published business directories, Prospect of
Philadelphia is available at the Library Company of Philadelphia. Adams
described the potential for trade between the United States and Dutch
Atlantic colonies in this way: "the produce of the colonies must be
brought home in Dutch ships, as heretofore, molasses excepted" (Adams
to Livingston, July 30, 1783, in RDC, 6: 618–19). Dutch Saint
Eustatius continued to play an important role in American trade in the
Caribbean region as an intermediate port for American produce to the British
islands (see Gordon Bjork, "The Weaning of the American Economy:
Independence, Market Changes, and Economic Development," Journal of
Economic History 24, no. 4 (December 1964): 553.
15 John
Adams, John Jay, and Benjamin Franklin made up the first three members of
the European Commission. In 1784 Thomas Jefferson replaced Jay (see Merrill
D. Peterson, "Thomas Jefferson and Commercial Policy, 1783–1793,"
WMQ 22, no. 4 [October 1965]: 584–610). For use
of Portugal's western islands, see John Adams to Robert Livingston, July
12, 1783, in RDC, 6: 538. For the Portuguese court rejection, see
Thomas Jefferson Papers, Series 1, General Correspondence, 1651–1827,
"United States Treaties, 1786, Amity and Commerce Treaty between
Portugal and the United States," Library of Congress.
16 John
Adams to Robert Livingston, Aug. 10, 1783, in RDC, 6: 642. Adams
preferred direct trade in American ships, though he suggested importing
Spanish colonial produce through third-party intermediaries as an
alternative: "I asked him again what objections there could be to
admitting American vessels to the Spanish islands of Cuba and Hispaniola,
to carry their produce ... as they did in the French and Dutch
colonies." Sanafee, Spain's ambassador, only reiterated his inability
to state an opinion. Adams encouraged Congress to instruct the United
States minister in Madrid to "propose all these things and endeavor to
obtain them."
17 For
information about Russian reactions to the American Revolution, see David
M. Griffiths, "American Commercial Diplomacy in Russia, 1781 to
1783," WMQ 27, no. 3 (July 1970): 379–410. For
Russia's wish for a settlement, see Penn. Gaz., Aug. 4, 1784.
18 For
information on Saint Martin, see Robert L. Paquette and Stanley L.
Engerman, eds., The Lesser Antilles in the Age of European Expansion
(Gainesville, Fla., 1996), 211–15. John Adams to Robert Livingston,
July 30, 1783, in RDC, 6: 618.
Though Pennsylvania newspapers were
optimistic, it is difficult to predict how a Russian Caribbean colony may
have benefited American trade. Several United States congressmen noted
Russia's predisposition toward British interests. They questioned Russian
impartiality and speculated that Russia's efforts to reduce animosity
between the Dutch and British may have delayed Holland's recognition of
United States sovereignty (Joseph Jones to James Hunter, Mar. 26, 1782, in LDC,
18: 420–21). Russia had offered to act as a mediator between the North
American colonies and Great Britain in 1781, but was turned down by the
British Crown (Rhode Island Delegates to William Greene, July 24, 1781,
ibid., 17: 443; John Mathews to Nathanael Greene, Aug. 14, 1781, ibid., 17:
518–20). "It is observable by the last arrivals that the Dutch
were on the point of acknowledging our Independance. Six of the provinces
have Instructed their Deputies to that end ... The People in every Quarter
cry out aloud to their Rulers to secure for them in Time the Friendship and
a share of the Commerce of America, and their Importunity seems to be too
great to be resisted. It is, therefore, an Article of my political Creed
that we shall soon enter into an alliance with the Dutch. The new British
ministry are exerting every nerve to draw that nation into a separate
Peace, and the Russian Ambassador has interposed his mediation with a Zeal
which is not very pleasing" (James Duane to George Clinton, July 1,
1782, ibid., 18: 617. See also Alastair Hamilton, Alexander H. de Groot,
and Maurits H. van den Boogert, eds., Friends and Rivals in the East.
Studies in Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Levant from the Seventeenth to the
Early Nineteenth Century [Leiden, Netherlands, 2000]).
19 In
1782, 126 of 289 vessels recorded cleared into Philadelphia, or just over
40 percent, came from Christiansted, Saint Croix. The remainder were
divided between 28 ports; the next highest concentrations were from Hamburg
(approximately 17 percent), Havana, and New Jersey (both approximately 7
percent). Figures from Records of the Office of the Comptroller General,
Port of Philadelphia Records, Registers of Duties Paid on Imported Goods
(1781–1788), 6 vols. (Record Group 4, Pennsylvania State Archives,
Harrisburg, Pa.).
20 The
Danish West India and Guinea Company purchased Saint Croix from France in
1733. To secure the sale, company executives greatly exaggerated the
colony's development: "The island, when surveyed would be found to
contain not fewer than 800 large plantations besides many smaller
ones" and "would yield cacao, indigo, and coffee, as well as
sugar and cotton ... of such a high quality that the plantations would be
worth from 500 to 1,000 rdl. from the beginning." Instead, the first
arrivals found a series of abandoned buildings and slave quarters, and an
island that was still largely uninhabited (Waldemar Westergaard, The
Danish West Indies Under Company Rule, 1671–1754 [With a Supplementary
Chapter, 1755–1917] [New York, 1917], 202–5, quotation, 204).
It took time for Saint Croix to find its
economic niche. Some farming took place, but rather than the diverse
agricultural base lauded by company directors, small plantations only grew
modest amounts of sugar and tobacco. To ensure as wide a market as
possible, the Danish West India Company opted to open the island's ports to
privately owned vessels regardless of nationality. The tactic worked and
Saint Croix enjoyed a booming free trade economy until 1747, when rising
island profits enticed company executives to try to regain a shipping
monopoly. Through several petitions and ultimately a delegation to Copenhagen,
the island's planters secured their right to trade privately with the
British colonies of North America, though "all other trade with
foreign lands must be carried on through Copenhagen alone" (ibid.,
233). In 1754 Saint Croix passed from private to royal hands and the Danish
crown abolished the last monopolistic trade policies. Only once, in 1781,
did the king attempt to regain some control over shipping privileges, but
all such efforts ended in 1782 (ibid., 231–33).
21 The
variety of ports shipping coffee to Philadelphia by the end of 1783 is
remarkable; most only appear once in the lists and likely represent an
effort to expend a small coffee surplus rather than any kind of established
coffee trade. A handful appear regularly, though the quantities carried
amount to much less than their Danish or French West Indian counterparts.
Coffee shipments in 1783 arrived from foreign and domestic trading
partners. Foreign trading partners included: Amsterdam, Antigua, Barbados,
Bermuda, Demerara, Dominica, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Havana, Hispaniola,
Jamaica, Marseilles, Martinique, Saint Croix, Saint Domingue, Saint Kitts,
Saint Lucia, Saint Mark, Saint Pierre, Saint Thomas, Suriname, and Tobago.
Other states traded with included: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey,
New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia
(Record Group 4, Pennsylvania State Archives).
22 For
France's further enticement of American business, see Setser, Commercial
Reciprocity Policy, 16–19, 39–40, 88–91. For a
discussion about increasing American exports to the French Caribbean after
American independence, see John H. Coatsworth, "American Trade with
European Colonies in the Caribbean and South America, 1790–1812,"
WMQ 24, no. 2 (April 1967): 243–46; Douglass C.
North, "The United States Balance of Payments, 1790–1860,"
in Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century
(Princeton, N.J., 1960); Setser, Commercial Reciprocity Policy. For
French coffee's sound reputation, see, as example, Benjamin Smith Barton
Papers, Series 2, Subject Files, 1789–1815, folder labeled
"Botany: Potatoes, Coffee, Corn, etc.," in the collection of the
American Philosophical Society. In these notes Barton compares the taste of
East Indian coffee with British and French West Indian coffees:
"coffee from the port of Mocha or Java is most preferred, and then
after that French. Coffee from the British islands is fit only for negroes
and should be avoided if at all possible as it [is] too bitter." For
studies of French Caribbean coffee production capacity just before the
revolution in Saint Domingue, see Patrick Bryan, "Emigrés: Conflict
and Reconciliation. The French Emigrés in Nineteenth-Century Jamaica,"
Jamaica Journal 7 (1973): 13–19; David Geggus, "Jamaica
and the Saint Domingue Slave Revolt, 1791–1793," Americas: A
Quarterly Review of Inter-American Cultural History 38, no. 2 (October
1981): 219–34; Michel Rolph-Trouillot, "Motion in the System:
Coffee, Color and Slavery in Eighteenth-Century Saint Domingue," Review,
A Journal of the Fernand Braudel Centre 5, no. 3 (Winter 1982): 331–88;
Rolph-Trouillot, "Coffee Planters and Coffee Slaves in the Antilles:
The Impact of a Secondary Crop," in Cultivation and Culture: Labor
and the Shaping of Slave Life in the Americas, ed. Ira Berlin and
Philip Morgan (Charlottesville, Va., 1993), 124–37; Geggus,
"International Repercussions of the Haitian Revolution" (Elsa
Goveia Memorial Lecture, University of the West Indies, Mona, April 1999).
23
Parliament passed the first British tax on foreign coffee in 1732 as
"An Act for Encouraging the Growth of Coffee in his Majesty's
Plantations in America," in Acts 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8 of George the
Second (London, 1732). This act was subsequently upheld each time it
came up for consideration. The act's principal feature was a preferential
tariff, reducing import duties on British West Indian coffee from 24 d. to
18 d. per pound, retaining the higher rate of 24 d. for foreign and East
Indian imports. The different tax rates for British West Indian coffee
compared with those of British East Indian and all foreign coffees not only
undermined competition by the French and the Dutch but also limited the
viability of England's own experiments in the Indian Ocean. For the French
Antilles supply, see "Decree of the National Convention, of 19th
February, 1793, 2nd year of the French Republic, relative to produce
exported and imported in American Vessels, to the Colonies, or to
France," in American State Papers: Foreign Relations, 1: 147.
On Feb. 17, 1793, the French National Convention opened their West Indian
and East Indian possessions, declaring: "That all the ports of the
French colonies be open to vessels of the United States ... That all
produce exported or imported in American vessels, on going out or entering
in the colonies, or in France, pay the same duties as that borne by French
vessels" and "that the law of the 20th of August, 1790, be
suspended; and that vessels laden with merchandise of the East Indies, may
be at liberty to land."
24 The
final treaty language granted American merchants the right to
"purchase, load and carry away in their said vessels to the United
States from the said islands and ports [of the British West Indies] all
such articles being of the growth, manufacture, or produce of the said
islands." Moreover, Americans paid "only the same duties and
charges on exportation, to which British vessels and their cargoes"
were subject (Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, Between His
Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, by their President,
Ratified June 24, 1795 [Philadelphia, 1795], 31–36, quotation,
32). The treaty stipulated that the United States and Britain revisit the
West Indian issue in two years. The same limitations also applied to
British East Indian trade with America, including the restriction of
American imports of coffee to domestic consumption.
25
"Committee of Congress Report, Sept. 25, 1783," in LDC,
20: 701. See also Timothy Pitkin, A Statistical View of the Commerce of
the United States of America (1817; repr., New York, 1967), 178–79.
26 For
American ships illegally trading, see "Abstract of American Vessels
Captured by Privateers and Gunboats belonging to the Citizens of the French
Republic and carried into the French Ports of Saint Domingo," in American
State Papers: Foreign Relations, 2: 55–61. Only cargoes from half
of the captured vessels were included in the report and, of these, only two
carried coffee. In most cases American ships were stopped because French
islanders needed wheat, wood, pork, and other staples from North America,
rather than for a perceived infraction in Caribbean exports back to
America. French ports were open to American vessels, but exports were
supposed to move only between American and French or French colonial ports;
any deviation or attempt either to sell French produce outside either
nation, or to bring foreign produce into the French empire (for example,
combining British and French coffee) was considered privateering. The same
held for United States–British commerce when such lines were
temporarily reopened. Philadelphia suffered the most from French incursions
because of the city's leading position in the Caribbean trade. Of the
forty-four vessels French authorities accused of privateering in 1796, more
than one-third belonged to Philadelphia traders. In addition to
Philadelphia's fourteen ships, vessels brought into Saint Domingue came
from: Baltimore (7), New York (6), Boston (5), Charleston (4), New London
(2), Saint Thomas (1), Cape Anne (1), Georgetown (1), New Bedford (1),
Providence (1), and Staten Island (1). The following year numbers rose even
higher. A "Schedule of Names of American Vessels captured by the
French and of the Circumstances Attending them Extracted from the
Philadelphia Gazette and the Gazette of the United States" listed 316
captured American vessels, 47 from Philadelphia (ibid.).
27 Coatsworth, WMQ 24: 247. The Swedish West Indies
accounted for 13,783 pounds of coffee in 1797 and 175,213 pounds in 1798;
the Danish West Indies supplied 109,027 and 2,033,108 pounds, respectively,
during these two years.
28 For
complaints of Philadelphia buyers, see Penn. Gaz., Apr. 1, 1795. For
Dutch East Indies export figures, see American State Papers: Commerce
and Navigation, 1: 350, 471.
29 For
Saint Domingue's share of the global coffee market, see Geggus,
"International Repercussions of the Haitian Revolution," 8, 11.
See also Rayford W. Logan, The Diplomatic Relations of the United States
with Haiti, 1776–1891 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1941); Timothy
Matthewson, "George Washington's Policy towards the Haitian
Revolution," Diplomatic History 3 (1979): 321–36;
Matthewson, "Jefferson and Haiti," Journal of Southern History
61, no. 2 (May 1995): 209–48. In "Jefferson and Haiti," Matthewson
suggests that Jefferson used an embargo against Haiti as a diplomatic ploy
to encourage Bonaparte to favorably review Jefferson's interest in
Louisiana and the surrounding Floridas (246–48). For an alternative
interpretation, see Michael Zuckerman, "The Power of Blackness: Thomas
Jefferson and the Revolution in Saint Domingue," in Almost Chosen
People: Oblique Biographies in the American Grain (Berkeley, Calif.,
1993), 175–218. Zuckerman argues Jefferson's support to France and
French colonists during the revolution in Saint Domingue reflects his
personal racist ideology and vested economic interest in restoring slavery
to the island. For the opening of the island's ports, see Penn. Gaz.,
June 25, 1794 (Charleston, May 24): "Whereas, it is become highly
expedient, in order to procure a more abundant, supply of every thing
necessary for the comfort and convenience of the inhabitants of such parts
of St. Domingo, as are or may be under the British government, as well as
his majesty's forces serving there, that vessels importing provisions and
lumber into the said island from the United States of North America, should
be permitted to take and carry away, in payment for the same, sugar, rum,
coffee, cotton and produce of every description."
30 The
numbers of ships arriving from Havana in the early 1780s are: forty-four
(1781), twenty (1782), but drop to just a handful thereafter; there are
none, for instance, in 1783 (Record Group 4, Pennsylvania State Archives).
For Amerian high hopes, see Penn. Gaz., May 25, 1785.
31 For
reductions in limitations, see Coatsworth, WMQ 24: 247. The Spanish West Indies as a
whole received less than 1 percent of all American exports between 1790 and
1793. For the United States merchant in Cuba, see Penn. Gaz., Apr.
4, 1792.
32 For
Spain's closing of ports again, see Arthur P. Whitaker, The United
States and the Independence of Latin America, 1800–1830 (Baltimore,
1941), 6–9. Figures for vessels carrying coffee to the United States
from 1806 to 1812 demonstrate the overwhelming preference of United States
merchants for American shipping (American State Papers: Commerce and
Navigation, 1: 350, 367, 394, 402, 434, 441, 464, 471, 478, 514, 521,
566, 576, 580, 629, 635, 676, 682, 706, 712, 757, 760; see also Table
V).
33
Brown and Walsh to Brown & Birch, Liverpool, Mar. 13, 1773, 1–3,
T1/504, National Archives.
34Penn.
Gaz., Feb. 5, 1794.
35 For
the threat to America's international reputation, see Penn. Gaz.,
Feb. 12, 1794. For Thomas Jefferson's letter to Congress, see American
State Papers: Foreign Relations, 1: 66, "Letter from President
Jefferson to the House and Senate, Dec. 3, 1805." For merchants
satisfied with increased profits, see Penn. Gaz., May 21, 1794.
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