Emulating Empires: Caribbean Free Ports, Economic Dualism, and European Imperial Rivalry, c. 1670s–1760s

ABSTRACT

When the Dutch West Indies Company (WIC) established the free port of Willemstad, Curaçao after 1674, they launched a model for economic competition that other European empires would emulate. Within a century, the Danish, Spanish, British, and French all established their own Caribbean free ports. Emulation, however, was not replication. This article argues that while the expansion of free ports into different Caribbean empires generated similar forms of economic dualism (prohibitive commercial systems in certain locales with more-open ones in others), they all served varying purposes. The Dutch and Danish maintained or expanded their free-port systems and utilised strategic neutrality to remain active players within an increasingly competitive economic arena. Britain wanted to extend its commercial empire by making foreign realms dependent on its trade. France sought to pacify recalcitrant planters desperate for reliable provisioning. Finally, Spain enacted free ports in Santo Domingo to supply and encourage settlement in a region threatened by French encroachments. Thus, although these empires all established free ports in strategic locales and jealously emulated each other, they did so with unique political-economic aims in mind. Meanwhile, merchants, enslaved Africans, sailors, settlers, and European intellectuals employed Caribbean free ports to accomplish their own ends as well.

KEYWORDS:

• Emulation
• economic dualism
• jealousy of trade
• Caribbean free ports
• political economy
• European colonial empires

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Smith, An Inquiry, Book IV, 3, 493.

2 See Hont, Jealousy of Trade, 5–11; Shovlin, “War and Peace,” 305–8; and Whatmore, Against War.

3 The concept of “Økonomisk dualisme” in the Danish Caribbean is described by Vibæk, Vore Gamble Tropekolonier, 64. In this article, we understand ‘economic dualism’ as ‘A way of conceptualizing the existence of two (sometimes more) separate but symbiotic sets of economic processes or markets within the same political or national social framework’. A Dictionary of Sociology.

4 Paquette, Enlightenment, 4–7; Reinert, Translating Empire, 2.

5 For a description of enslaved people entering free-port networks to evade their enslavers see, Hall, “Maritime Maroons”; Rupert, Creolization and Contraband, 95–7 and 196–7; Mulich, In a Sea, 124.

6 On scholarship on free ports that adopts a transimperial and comparative approach, see Mulich, In a Sea; Jordaan and Wilson, “Eighteenth-Century”; Goebel, “The New England Trade”; Bassi, An Aqueous Territory; Shovlin, Trading with the Enemy, 188–227.

7 Tazzara, The Free Port of Livorno, 5–12.

8 Ibid., 1–96 and 233; Trivellato, Familiarity of Strangers, 208; Horn, Economic Development, 107–10 and 134–55.

9 For this definition, see Wilson, Commerce in Disguise, 13. For a general discussion of the meaning of free trade in the eighteenth century, see Shovlin, Trading with the Enemy, 21–4.

10 Schnurmann, “‘Wherever Profit Leads Us, to Every Sea and Shore … ’,” 491; Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean, 157.

11 Rupert, Creolization and Contraband, 78. See also, Klooster, The Dutch Moment, 182–3.

12 Klooster and Oostinde, Realm between Empires, 28–41, 166, 256; Klooster, “Curaçao as a Transit Center,” 25–6 and 28.

13 On religious toleration in Curaçao, see Rupert, Creolization and Contraband, 95 and 148.

14 Enthoven, “That Abominable Nest of Pirates,” 270–2; Klooster and Oostinde, Realm between Empires, 38–45. For a similar, but more restricted, Dutch relaxation of foreign trade restrictions in Suriname and St. Maarten see Fatah-Black, White Lies and Black Markets, xv, 54–4, and 179–81.

15 Morgan, “Maritime Slavery,” 316.

16 On Dutch hegemony, see Wallerstein, The Modern World-System, vol. 2, chapter 2. On eighteenth-century sustained influence, see Klooster and Oostinde, Realm between Empires.

17 Hall, Slave Society in the Danish West Indies, 6 and 9; Westergaard, The Danish West Indies, 109 and 121.

18 Olsen, Toldvæsnet, 14–6. On Danish neutrality, see Westergaard, The Danish West Indies, 110–1; and Feldbæk, “Eighteenth-Century Danish Neutrality.”

19 Westergaard, The Danish West Indies, 108.

20 Peter Smith, St. Thomas, 5 April 1707, Rigsarkivet, København (RK). Vestindiske-Guineiske Kompagnie, Direktionen, 446. Breve og Dokumenter fra Vestindien, 1704-1707. Box 91. Our translation from the original French.

21 Nieuwe West Indische Compagnie, 623 f. 705–708 as quoted in Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean, 209–10.

22 For the act of 9 April 1764, see RK, Generaltoldkammeret - Ældre del (GTK). Vestindisk-guineisk renteskriverkontor (VGR), 365. Relationer og resolutioner angående Vestindien og Guinea. 1760–5. On wishes to learn from the example of St. Eustatius, see Regeringsrådets skrivelse, 27 September 1766. RK 365 GTK, VGR Indkomne vestindiske breve. B 1766 754–853. 56. On the order of April 1767, see Letter of 28 April 1767. GTK, VGR. Kopier af forestillinger med derpå tegnede kgl. resolutioner ang. vestindiske og guinesikse sager. On the acts, see also Olsen, Toldvæsnet, 147–9.

23 For cross-imperial connections in the Caribbean, see Mulich, In a Sea; Bassi, An Aqueous Territory.

24 On trans-imperial rumour circulation, see Scott, The Common Wind.

25 Consejo de Indias to the King, Madrid, 26 September 1761, in Archivo General de Indias (AGI), Consultas, Decretos y Reales Ordenes: Santo Domingo, 1744–63, Audiencia de Santo Domingo, 920.

26 Very little has been written about Monte Cristi, especially from the Spanish perspective, and few records exist regarding the political-economic logic of its establishment as a free port. There has even been some historiographical debate on the date of origin of this decree. Thomas Truxes says this event occurred in 1750, Rafael Darío Herrera says 1751, Michael Jarvis says 1752, and Elpido José Ortega Alvarez and Samuel Hazard correctly say 1756. See Truxes, Defying Empire, 79; Herrera, Montecristi, 32; Jarvis, In the Eye of all Trade, 181; Alvarez, Ensayo histórico, 52; Hazard, Santo Domingo, 100. None of them, however, cite an actual decree.

27 Rupert, Creolization and Contraband; Klooster, Illicit Riches. For Dutch smugglers from Curaçao seized in Santo Domingo, see also “Permiso de Paso y Comercio del Ganado a Colonias Francesas,” 1748, AGI, Audiencia de Santo Domingo, 314.

28 Paquette, Enlightenment, 102.

29 For more on Spanish emulation of other imperial models in the eighteenth century, see Elliot, Empires of the Atlantic World; Keuthe and Andrien, The Spanish Atlantic World, 6–11; Tavárez, ‘La invención de un imperio comercial hispano’, 56–76; Elena Schneider, “African Slavery and Spanish Empire,” 9–11; Stein and Stein, Apogee of Empire, 58. For larger discussions on emulation in the eighteenth century, see Reinert, Translating Empire.

30 On trade via St. Eustatius, see Letter from La Touche to the Minister of the Marine, Martinique, 13 June 1761. Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence (ANOM), Correspondance à l’arrivée de la Martinique (COL), Sous-série C8 A 63 F° 96. Accessed online at http://anom.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr (AO) Reference: ark:/61561/zn401npgiom.

31 Mémoire du roi à MM de Fénelon et de la Rivière, 15 August 1763, ANOM COL C8A 65, fol. 34, AO Reference: ark:/61561/zn401suprnn.

32 ‘Arrêst du conseil d’état du roi qui ordonne l’établissement de deux Entrepôts, l’un au port du Carénage, dans l’île du Saint-Domingue: Et qui permet aux Étrangers d’y introduire & d’en exporter certaines denrées & marchandises’, 29 Juillet 1767 (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1767). Accessed at www.gallica.fr. On this history, see Tarrade, Le commerce colonial, Røge, Economistes and the Reinvention of Empire, 121–9, Shovlin, Trading with the Enemy, 191–206.

33 Fénelon to Choiseul, Fort Royal, 9 April 1764, COL C8 A 66 F° 25. AO Reference: ark:/61561/zn401qsmjju Our translation.

34 ‘British West Indies’, in The Scots Magazine, 1 March 1767, 162, British Library Newspapers. Accessed at: https://www.gale.com/primary-sources. For French emulation of British free ports, see also Mandelblatt, “How Feeding Slaves,” 209–10.

35 Tarrade, Le commerce colonial, 313; Goebel, “The New England Trade,” 360.

36 Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description topographique de la partie française, vol. 2, 24–30.

37 Gazette de France, 30 May 1766, 174. Gazette du Commerce, 7 June 1766, 360. Both accessed on www.gallica.bnf.fr.

38 Quoted in Tarrade, Le commerce colonial, 299. Our translation.

39 On the Minister of the Marine’s awareness of the British free port decree, see Tarrade, Le Commerce Coloniale, 297.

40 Goebel, “New England Trade,” 338–347; Dunk Halifax to Earl of Hertford, 4 November 1763, The National Archives (TNA), State Papers Foreign, France, 78/258 f.225; ‘A Plain Narrative of Facts … by various merchants of Dominica, submitted to the Commander at Dominica and to be sent to England’, 27 January 1764, TNA, Colonial Office Papers (CO), 101/9, f. 206.

41 See Armytage, The Free Port System, 36–40; Kleiser, “An Empire of Free Ports.”

42 Dalrymple to Lord Bute, 27 February 1763, British Library (BL), Additional Manuscripts (Add MS) 38200, ff. 260-4.

43 “Memorial of Liverpool Merchants asking to make Grenada a [[free]] [[port]],” TNA, CO 5/65, Part 1 1762/12.

44 For quote, see Edward Davis to Marquess of Rockingham, 6 April 1766, Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments (WWM), Rockingham Papers (R), 37/4; see also Edmund Burke to Rockingham, 13 March 1766, WWM, Edmund Burke Papers (Bk P) 1/94; William Dowdeswell to Rockingham, Undated, ‘Remarks on the Virgin Islands to be included with the ceded Islands for payment of the 4 ½ p..Cent’, WWM/R/43/15; Long Gotham to Rockingham, 31 May 1766, WWM/R/209/3; Francis Moore, ‘Thoughts on the Expediency of Opening Free Ports in Dominica, by a Person who Resided some years at the Island of St. Eustatius’, May 1766, BL, Add. Ms. 33,030, ff. 253–7, at 254.

45 Postlethwayt, Universal Dictionary, vol. 1, 146.

46 Mortimer, A New and Complete Dictionary, 706.

47 Colonel George Scott to the Board of Trade, 15 May 1763, TNA, CO 101/1, f. 13

48 King’s separate and private instructions to Hertford. 1763 Sept 29 St James’, f. 89. The King. Secretaries of State: State Papers Foreign, France.

49 See Klooster, Illicit Riches; and Postma, The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade, Chapter 3.

50 Jordaan and Wilson, “Eighteenth-Century,” 275–81; Jarvis, In the Eye of All Trade, 165–7; Enthoven, “That Abominable Nest of Pirates,” 270–2; Klooster and Oostinde, Realm between Empires, 41–4.

51 Peter Smith to Crone, St. Thomas, 5 April 1707, Rigsarkivet 446, det vestindiske-guineiske Kompagnie, Direktionen, Breve og Dokumenter fra Vestindien, 1704/1707, 91, Our translation from the original French.

52 For a description of the typography of the three islands under Danish rule, see Olsen (ed), Vestindien St. Croix, 54. See also, Westergaard, The Danish West Indies, 3–4.

53 Sánchez Valverde, Idea del Valor, 59; Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description topographique de la partie espagnole, vol. 1, 299.

54 Don Phelipe Alexander Lontunsrio de Camara to Crown, 15 December 1741, #38, in “Limites con los Francesas y Usurpacion en la isla Espanola”, 1736–1754, AGI, Audiencia de Santo Domingo, 305; Consejo de las Indias to Don Joseph Ignacio de Goyenche, 19 August 1754, #50, in “Limites con los Francesas y Usurpacion en la isla Espanola,” 1736–54, AGI, Audiencia de Santo Domingo, 305; Saint-Méry, Description topographique de la partie espagnole, vol. 1, xviii–xix, 201.

55 For more on Spain’s effort to augment the population of Santo Domingo in the first half of the eighteenth century, see Sevilla Soler, Santo Domingo, 45.

56 Consejo de Indias to the King, Madrid, 26 September 1761, in AGI, Consultas, Decretos y Reales Ordenes: Santo Domingo, 1744–63, Audiencia de Santo Domingo, 920. It is interesting that Governor Rubio y Peñarada included Samaná in his request to establish a buffer settlement against the French, as this region is in the Northeast of the island. Perhaps the governor was afraid that any territory left unpopulated might tempt French incursions by sea. See Governor Rubio y Peñarada to Señor Marques de la Ensenada, Santo Domingo, 16 January 1752, in Expedientes e Instancias: Santo Domingo, 1729–52, AGI, Audiencia de Santo Domingo, 10009 and Governor Rubio y Peñarada to Señor Marques de la Ensenada, 30 April 1752, in Expedientes e Instancias: Santo Domingo, 1729–52, AGI, Audiencia de Santo Domingo, 1009. For more on the similar need to populate in Puerto Plata to defend against invading enemies, see Governor of Santo Domingo Azlor to King, 21 February 1761, in Tratado de límites y policía con Francia, AGI, Audiencia de Santo Domingo, 1018. For more information on this logic, see the forthcoming dissertation of R. Grant Kleiser, provisionally entitled Exchanging Empires: Free Ports, Reform, and Revolution in the Atlantic World, 1750–1784.

57 Although Horan notes that slaves’ malnutrition was not due merely to a lack of supplies but also to slave-owners’ greed. Horan, “The Colonial Famine Plot”; Mandelblatt, “How Feeding Slaves,” 208.

58 Goebel, “The New England Trade,” 349.

59 Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description topographique de la partie française, vol. 2, 23.

60 Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description topographique de la partie française, vol. 2, 29. On this phase of the history of Môle Saint-Nicholas see also Goebel, “The New England Trade,” 358–61.

61 Armytage, The Free Port System, 10–11; O’Malley, Final Passages, 301–5; Pearce, British Trade with Spanish America, 48–52.

62 For more on the history of Dominica, see Murphy, Creole Archipelago.

63 Edelson, New Map of Empire, 199–201; Taylor, The Black Carib Wars.

64 Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell Dalrymple to Lord Bute, 27 February 1763, in Fortescue (ed.), The Correspondence of King George the Third, vol. 1, 46.

65 Francis Moore, ‘Thoughts on the Expediency of Opening Free Ports in Dominica, by a Person who Resided some years at the Island of St. Eustatius’, May 1766, BL, Add. Ms. 33,030, f. 253.

66 For quote, see Thomas Jefferys, Geographer to the King, ‘West India Atlas’, Printed for Robert Sayer and John Bennet, Fleet-Street, 1775, BL, King’s Topographical Collection, 18; Armytage, The Free Port System, 10; O’Malley, Final Passages, 304.

67 Armytage, The Free Port System, 11.

68 Sir George Bridges Rodney to Lords of Admiralty, 10 March 1774, TNA CO 5/120, f. 243–5.

69 Reasons Why Lucea is more convenient for the Spanish Trade than Montego Bay, offered by James Kerr; Answers to Mr. Kerr’s reasons for opening St. Lucea, by Mr. Vaughan, both in Townshend papers at Dalkeith, Box 2, bundle 34.

70 ‘An Act for Opening and establishing certain Ports in the Islands of Jamaica and Dominica’, in The Parliamentary Archives (PA), 1766, 6 Year of Reign of GIII, CAP. XLIX, 800.

71 By the mid-eighteenth century, French sugar was cheaper than British sugar, causing concern among British planters that they would lose market shares. For a comparison of British and French sugar production at this time, see Burnard and Garrigus, The Plantation Machine; Crouzet, La guerre économique franco-anglaise, 144, 277. For more on the debates in London in 1766 over specific free-port restrictions and regulations, see Armytage, The Free Port System, 41; Langford, The First Rockingham Administration, 205; Koehn, The Power of Commerce, 195; Anonymous, ‘Proposal for free ports in Dominica’ and ‘Dominica opened under Restrictions’, in Townshend Papers, Reel 2, Bundle 34; Thomas, British Politics and the Stamp Act Crisis, 270-2.

72 Klooster, “Curaçao as a Transit Center,” 25–26 and 28. On the WIC’s rationale to make Willemsted a free port see Koot, “The WIC, the Dutch West India Company” (unpublished paper), 61. Koot’s notes that his paper is based on Henk den Heijer, Geschiedenis van de WIC: Opkomst, Bloei and Ondergang (Zutphen: Walburg Press, 2003).

73 On Dutch strategic neutrality, see Stapelbroek, “Dutch Decline as European Phenomenon.”

74 Hall, Slave Society in the Danish West Indies, 21.

75 Gøbel, “Volume and Structure,” 111.

76 Røge, Economistes, 184; see also Tarrande, Le Commerce Colonial; Banks, Chasing Empire across the Sea; Mandelblatt, “How Feeding Slaves.”

77 See Le Mercier de la Rivière to Monsieur le Duc, Secretary of State to the Marine, 9 August 1763, n. 20, ANOM, COL C8 A 65 F° 276, AO Reference: ark:/61561/zn401lnhgib; Le Mercier de la Rivière, intendant des Illes du Vent, to Monsieur le Duc, Secretary of State to the Marine, 9 August 1763, ANOM, n. 22, COL C8 A 65 F° 274, AO Reference: ark:/61561/zn401prlklu.

78 Observation de la chambre d’agriculture de la Martinique sur les mémoires remis par les chambres de commerce, 22 November 1765, ANOM Col C8B 11 N56.

79 Tarrade, Le commerce colonial; Røge, Economistes.

80 “Arrest du Conseil d’État du roi, qui ordonne l’établissement de deux entrepôts, l’un au port du Carénage, dans l’ile de Sainte-Lucie; & l’autre au môle Saint-Nicolas, dans l’ile de Saint-Domingue: et qui permet aux étrangers d’y introduire & d’en exporter certaines denrées & marchandises,” 29 July 1767, Paris : de l’Imprimerie royal, 1767, in John Carter Brown Library (JCB), 1-SIZE EB W&A 1737.

81 Tarrade, Le commerce colonial, 334; Bernhard and Garrigus, The Plantation Machine, 15–16; Rothschild, “A Horrible Tragedy.”

82 Sevilla Soler, Santo Domingo, 26; Ponce-Vázquez, Smuggling, 98–133.

83 Crespo Solana, La Casa de Contratación, 111; Walker, Spanish Politics, 5; Gutiérrez Escudero, Poblacion, 78, 29; Ponce Vázquez, Islanders and Empire.

84 See, for instance, Governor and Captain General of Hispanola to King, “Translado de franceses hacia la colonia Española,” 17 October 1731, AGI, Audiencia de Santo Domingo, 304, in César Augusto Herrera Cabral collection in Archivo General de la Nación de la República Dominicana (AGN) of transcribed documents from the Archivo General de Indias, http://colecciones.agn.gob.do/opac/ficha.php?informatico=00071151PI&codopac=OPPUB&idpag=1040559815; Fiscal of Santo Domingo to the King, “Informe sobre la importancia de demoler el Fuerte de Bayajá,” 17 March 1735, AGI, Audiencia de Santo Domingo, 304, in César Augusto Herrera Cabral collection in AGN of transcribed documents from the Archivo General de Indias, http://colecciones.agn.gob.do/opac/ficha.php?informatico=00071142PI&suposi=322&idpag=1040559815&codopac=OPPUB&presenta=normaimg.

85 ‘Carta de don Francisco Rubio y Peñaranda de 16 de enero de 1752, dando a la Corte de la Fundación de San Fernando de Montecristi en obedecimiento de la Real Cédula de 18 de mayo de 1749,’ AGI, Audiencia de Santo Domingo, 1020, quoted in Sevilla Soler, Santo Domingo, 57–8. Our translation.

86 Lieutenant Governor of Monte Christi letter to Governor Shirley, 1 March 1760, TNA, CO 23/15, f. 98.

87 Senor Fiscal, 14 September 1752, ‘Permiso de Paso y Comercio del Ganado a Colonias Francesas’, AGI, Audiencia de Santo Domingo, 314.

88 Sánchez Valverde, Idea del Valor, 123; see also Sevilla Soler, Santo Domingo, 45. Due to Spain’s entry into the Seven Years War in 1761, Spanish authorities shut down this free port from 1762–3. Thus, by the terms of the ten-year decree starting in 1756, Santo Domingos officially closed in 1768. For more on these two closures, see Truxes, Defying Empire, 142–3; Goebel, “New England Trade,” 360.

89 For more on Spanish decision-making with regard to Santo Domingo’s free ports, and especially the logic to not renew Spanish free ports after 1768, see the upcoming dissertation by R. Grant Kleiser provisionally entitled Exchanging Empires: Free Ports, Reform, and Revolution in the Atlantic World, 1750–1784.

90 See Kleiser, “An Empire of Free Ports,” for more on this analysis of British free-port motivations.

91 ‘Mr. Huske’s Scheme for Free Ports in America’, BL Add. MSS. 33,030, fols. 318–323; ‘Scheme for Free Ports in America to Secretary Conway’, in Charles Townsend papers 8/34/21, in the William Clements Library (WCL).

92 Anonymous, Impartial observations, 16.

93 For Parliamentary discussions and the Rockingham Administration’s support for free ports, see Pearce, British Trade with Spanish America, 48–52; Marshall, Edmund Burke, 105–24. For more on inter-colonial slave-trading through British free ports, see O’Malley, Final Passages, 301–17.

94 See Kleiser, “An Empire of Free Ports.”

95 Equiano, The Interesting Narrative, 116.

96 For more of these professions, see Morgan, “Maritime Slavery,” 311–13.

97 See the drawn-out debate in the Journal d’agriculture, du commerce et des finances from December 1765 to June 1766. Røge, Economistes, 83 and 127.

98 Raynal, A Philosophical and Political History, vol. 3, 248. For more on Raynal, see Strugnell, “Raynal, Guillaume-Thomas.”

99 Smith, Wealth of Nations, Bk. IV, Ch. VII, Pt. II, 615.

100 Tarrade, Le commerce colonial, 531–2, and 538–540; Covo, Entrepôt of Revolutions, 45–72.

101 Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description topographique de la partie espagnole, vol. 1, 206.

102 Armytage, The Free Port System, 43–4.

103 Jordaan and Wilson, “Eighteenth-Century.”

104 Mulich, In a Sea of Empires; Wilson, Commerce in Disguise; Wilson, “Contraband Trade under Swedish Colours.”

105 See A Global History of Free Ports, https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/a-global-history-of-free-ports; Ogle, “Archipelago Capitalism”; McCalla, “The Geographical Spread”; Orenstein, Out of Stock.