(Trans) colonial, (trans) imperial and Atlantic Trade in the 18th Century: New Questions, Approaches and Methods
Workshop for Junior Scholars
*March 11, 2010*
Salle Lombard, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)
96, boulevard Raspail,
Paris 75006
M?tro : Saint-Placide, Rennes, Notre-Dame-des-Champs
Organizers: Manuel Covo, EHESS, Bertie Mandelblatt, Université de
Montrtéal.
With the support of: MARPROF, CENA, MASCIPO, EEASA.
ALL WELCOME
*English Introduction* (résumé en français e suivre
Economic history has played a pivotal role in the growth of Atlantic
history over the past few generations. However, the growth of Atlantic
history has been accompanied by a questioning of the frameworks which
have sustained it during these generations. Most critics focus on the
scales at work in studies of Atlantic history. For instance, much
current research on the economic and trade history of the Atlantic world
is moving beyond strict geographic and substantive parameters that have
in the past confined it to investigations of unitary Western European
imperial spheres (the British Atlantic, the French Atlantic, the
Iberian Atlantic), characterized by a focus on successful regimes of
production and successful systems of transatlantic exchange (slaves,
sugar, merchant networks).
Increasingly research on Atlantic trade is concentrating on what has
remained outside these lenses:
- the degree to which, and the modes in which imperial Atlantics
overlapped and were mutually dependent, via legal or illicit trade;
- sites within what has been traditionally considered as ?the
Atlantic?, where trade with the larger Atlantic plays a small, partial
or marginal role, such as the *pays d?en haut*;
- the development of continental non-transatlantic regional trades
within and across imperial spheres, via overland transport or coastal
shipping;
- sites outside what has been traditionally considered as ?the
Atlantic?: trade connections to Germany, the Baltic, the North
(Russia, Poland, etc), the East Indies, and the Mediterranean;
- the history of metropolitan and colonial experimentation with
regulatory and legal trade frameworks in order to understand early
modern mercantilism as a series of systems always in the making and the
result of competing interests;
- the failure of trade initiatives, thus permitting a better
understanding of the complexity and multiplicity of the forces at play.
Examples include: failed initiatives in establishing trade and its
associated practices (merchant houses, banking, credit, shipping);
failed initiatives in preventing trade through embargoes or the
imposition of fines and restrictions; or failed colonial endeavours
where trade played a pivotal role (Kourou);
- a greater attentiveness to the roles played by the consumption
practices connected to the commodities in question, and the means by
which they influenced trade;
- a greater attentiveness to the circulation of the multitude of
?minor? goods that made up transatlantic or intercolonial cargoes
such as cotton, flour, and molasses, that is , those other than the
great colonial commodities that propelled the Atlantic system forward
(sugar, tobacco,
slaves).
Within current research on Atlantic trade, there is also a heightened
methodological consciousness regarding the object of inquiry. While some
researchers follow the actors involved directly or indirectly in trade
(merchants, bankers, ship captains, consumers); some follow institutions
(merchant lobby groups, colonial sovereign counsels, the Minist?re de la
Marine); others follow the commodities being traded in order to
understand their circulation and the transformation in their value; and
still others focus on the development of theories of political economy
and commerce, and the roles these theories played in the formation of
metropolitan political and colonial policy. This workshop seeks to
highlight the research of a number of newer scholars who are studying
trade in this wider Atlantic context during the eighteenth century.
*PROGRAM / PROGRAMME*
* *
March 11, 2010
Salle Lombard, EHESS
96, boulevard Raspail,
Paris 75006
M?tro : Saint-Placide, Rennes, Notre-Dame-des-Champs
* *
9h00-9h15: WELCOME
9h15-9h45: INTRODUCTION
*Manuel Covo, *EHESS, France, *Bertie Mandelblatt*, Universit? de
Montr?al, Canada.
9h45-10h45: SESSION ONE: *Commodities and Circuits*
*Chair : Pierre Gervais, *Universit? Paris 8, France*.*
*Matthew Crawford*, Kent State University, USA, ?Contraband,
Commerce, and the Court: The Economies of Quina in the Late
Eighteenth-century Spanish Atlantic?.
*Joseph Horan*, Florida State University, USA, ?Bringing the Indies
to France: Acclimatization as a Response to the French Colonial Crisis
of the 1790?s?.
11h00-12h00: SESSION TWO: *States and Empires*
* *
*Chair : **Allan Potofsky, *Universit? Paris 7, France.
*Klas R?nnb?ck*, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, ?Power, Plenty and
Pressure groups: British and Danish colonialism in the West Indies and
the role of the state, 1768-1772?.
*Alexandre Dub?*, Universit? McGill, Canada, "Pacte colonial et
bataille du lib?ralisme : quelques r?flexions sur l'approvisionnement
colonial?.
12h00-14h00: LUNCH
14h00-15h30: SESSION THREE: *Maritime Profits*
*Chair : **Philippe Minard, *EHESS, France.
*Laure Pineau*, Universit? de Nantes, France : ?Le grand n?goce ?
Nantes et l'Atlantique ou une approche du capitalisme commercial au
XVIIIe si?cle?.
*Mariana Candido*, Princeton University, USA, ?The Rise of an
Atlantic Port: Benguela in the 18th century?.
*James Roberts*, Johns Hopkins University, USA, ?"Social Networking
in the Pursuit of Wartime Profits: New England's Benjamin Jarvis in
Martinique during the American Revolution".
16h00-16h30: CONCLUDING COMMENTS
*Silvia Marzagalli*, Universit? de Nice, France.
* *16h30-18h00: OPEN DISCUSSION
------------------------------
*ALL WELCOME*
*March 11, 2010*
Salle Lombard, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)
96, boulevard Raspail,
Paris 75006
M?tro : Saint-Placide, Rennes, Notre-Dame-des-Champs
Organizers: Manuel Covo, EHESS, Bertie Mandelblatt, Université de
Montrtéal.
With the support of: MARPROF, CENA, MASCIPO, EEASA.
ALL WELCOME
*English Introduction* (résumé en français e suivre
Economic history has played a pivotal role in the growth of Atlantic
history over the past few generations. However, the growth of Atlantic
history has been accompanied by a questioning of the frameworks which
have sustained it during these generations. Most critics focus on the
scales at work in studies of Atlantic history. For instance, much
current research on the economic and trade history of the Atlantic world
is moving beyond strict geographic and substantive parameters that have
in the past confined it to investigations of unitary Western European
imperial spheres (the British Atlantic, the French Atlantic, the
Iberian Atlantic), characterized by a focus on successful regimes of
production and successful systems of transatlantic exchange (slaves,
sugar, merchant networks).
Increasingly research on Atlantic trade is concentrating on what has
remained outside these lenses:
- the degree to which, and the modes in which imperial Atlantics
overlapped and were mutually dependent, via legal or illicit trade;
- sites within what has been traditionally considered as ?the
Atlantic?, where trade with the larger Atlantic plays a small, partial
or marginal role, such as the *pays d?en haut*;
- the development of continental non-transatlantic regional trades
within and across imperial spheres, via overland transport or coastal
shipping;
- sites outside what has been traditionally considered as ?the
Atlantic?: trade connections to Germany, the Baltic, the North
(Russia, Poland, etc), the East Indies, and the Mediterranean;
- the history of metropolitan and colonial experimentation with
regulatory and legal trade frameworks in order to understand early
modern mercantilism as a series of systems always in the making and the
result of competing interests;
- the failure of trade initiatives, thus permitting a better
understanding of the complexity and multiplicity of the forces at play.
Examples include: failed initiatives in establishing trade and its
associated practices (merchant houses, banking, credit, shipping);
failed initiatives in preventing trade through embargoes or the
imposition of fines and restrictions; or failed colonial endeavours
where trade played a pivotal role (Kourou);
- a greater attentiveness to the roles played by the consumption
practices connected to the commodities in question, and the means by
which they influenced trade;
- a greater attentiveness to the circulation of the multitude of
?minor? goods that made up transatlantic or intercolonial cargoes
such as cotton, flour, and molasses, that is , those other than the
great colonial commodities that propelled the Atlantic system forward
(sugar, tobacco,
slaves).
Within current research on Atlantic trade, there is also a heightened
methodological consciousness regarding the object of inquiry. While some
researchers follow the actors involved directly or indirectly in trade
(merchants, bankers, ship captains, consumers); some follow institutions
(merchant lobby groups, colonial sovereign counsels, the Minist?re de la
Marine); others follow the commodities being traded in order to
understand their circulation and the transformation in their value; and
still others focus on the development of theories of political economy
and commerce, and the roles these theories played in the formation of
metropolitan political and colonial policy. This workshop seeks to
highlight the research of a number of newer scholars who are studying
trade in this wider Atlantic context during the eighteenth century.
*PROGRAM / PROGRAMME*
* *
March 11, 2010
Salle Lombard, EHESS
96, boulevard Raspail,
Paris 75006
M?tro : Saint-Placide, Rennes, Notre-Dame-des-Champs
* *
9h00-9h15: WELCOME
9h15-9h45: INTRODUCTION
*Manuel Covo, *EHESS, France, *Bertie Mandelblatt*, Universit? de
Montr?al, Canada.
9h45-10h45: SESSION ONE: *Commodities and Circuits*
*Chair : Pierre Gervais, *Universit? Paris 8, France*.*
*Matthew Crawford*, Kent State University, USA, ?Contraband,
Commerce, and the Court: The Economies of Quina in the Late
Eighteenth-century Spanish Atlantic?.
*Joseph Horan*, Florida State University, USA, ?Bringing the Indies
to France: Acclimatization as a Response to the French Colonial Crisis
of the 1790?s?.
11h00-12h00: SESSION TWO: *States and Empires*
* *
*Chair : **Allan Potofsky, *Universit? Paris 7, France.
*Klas R?nnb?ck*, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, ?Power, Plenty and
Pressure groups: British and Danish colonialism in the West Indies and
the role of the state, 1768-1772?.
*Alexandre Dub?*, Universit? McGill, Canada, "Pacte colonial et
bataille du lib?ralisme : quelques r?flexions sur l'approvisionnement
colonial?.
12h00-14h00: LUNCH
14h00-15h30: SESSION THREE: *Maritime Profits*
*Chair : **Philippe Minard, *EHESS, France.
*Laure Pineau*, Universit? de Nantes, France : ?Le grand n?goce ?
Nantes et l'Atlantique ou une approche du capitalisme commercial au
XVIIIe si?cle?.
*Mariana Candido*, Princeton University, USA, ?The Rise of an
Atlantic Port: Benguela in the 18th century?.
*James Roberts*, Johns Hopkins University, USA, ?"Social Networking
in the Pursuit of Wartime Profits: New England's Benjamin Jarvis in
Martinique during the American Revolution".
16h00-16h30: CONCLUDING COMMENTS
*Silvia Marzagalli*, Universit? de Nice, France.
* *16h30-18h00: OPEN DISCUSSION
------------------------------
*ALL WELCOME*