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Contraband Trade under Swedish Colours: St. Barthélemy's Moment in the Sun, 1793–1815

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2019

Victor Wilson
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Abstract

The article explores the emergence and workings of the free port of Gustavia, founded in 1785 shortly after the Swedish acquisition of its first Caribbean colony, St. Barthélemy. Its free trade policy was modelled closely after Dutch and Danish predecessors in the region, which had been successful for centuries as neutral marketplaces, especially during times of international conflict. An increasing field of scholars have begun reconsidering the significance of contraband trade in Caribbean and Atlantic history. Arguments have been made for a more nuanced understanding of Caribbean geopolitics, one that acknowledges the necessity of informal transnational trade networks. The history of Gustavia is poorly explored in this context. With the aid of new sources, it has become possible to assess the economic role of Gustavia in the Caribbean transit trade during the European conflict of 1793–1815; these sources show that the free port was of greater importance than previous research has found it to be. Through its creation, the Swedish government hoped to commercially exploit a colonial territory of marginal value. War was the primary catalyst that drew people as well as capital to the island, contributing to both its commercial strength and cultural diversity. Former inhabitants of Dutch and French colonies sought refuge there in the wake of the French Revolution and the subsequent wars. Albeit for a brief time, Gustavia gained the character of an international, polyglot merchant community and functioned as an imperial crossroads where business could be conducted as usual between allies, neutrals, and enemies.

Keywords

Atlantic historyCaribbeanfree portssmugglingneutralityGustaviaSt. Barthélemy
Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 43 , Special Issue 2: Colonial Entanglements: Crossroads, Contact Zones and Flows in Scandinavian Global History , August 2019 , pp. 327 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Research Institute for History, Leiden University 

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Footnotes

*

Victor Wilson holds a PhD in History from Åbo Akademi University. For his 2016 dissertation, Commerce in Disguise: War and Trade in the Caribbean Free Port of Gustavia, 1793–1815, he received the annual research prize awarded by the Swedish Society for Maritime History. The dissertation covers the neutral Swedish free port and the role it played in the Caribbean regional transit trade and smuggling during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Wilson is currently finishing a biographical work about John Gardberg, a twentieth-century Finnish educator and intellectual. Since 2017, he is a member of the Global History of Free Ports Research Project, a transnational network which strives to investigate how free ports arose in early modern Europe and how they made an impact upon the global history of ideas pertaining to trade.

References

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Schnakenbourg, Eric. “Sweden and the Atlantic: The Dynamism of Sweden's Colonial Projects in the Eighteenth Century.” In Scandinavian Colonialism and the Rise of Modernity: Small Time Agents in a Global Arena, edited by Naum, Magdalena and Nordin, Jonas M., 229–42. New York: Springer, 2013.Google Scholar
Stephen, James. War in Disguise; Or the Frauds of the Neutral Flags. London: Hatchard, 1805.Google Scholar
Thomasson, Fredrik. “‘Contre la Loi mais en considérant les Circonstances dangereuses du moment.’ The Swedish Court of Law on Saint Barthélemy around 1800.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Caribbean Historians, Curaçao, May 2012, 6–12.Google Scholar
Tingbrand, Per. Who Was Who in St. Barthélemy during the Swedish Epoch? Stockholm: Swedish St. Barthélemy Society, 2001.Google Scholar
Wahlström, Lydia. Sverige och England under revolutionskrigens början: Bidrag till den Reuterholmska regeringens historia. Stockholm: Norstedt, 1917.Google Scholar
Wedberg, Birger. Tärningskast om liv och död. Rättshistoriska skisser. Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt and Söner, 1935.Google Scholar
Weiss, Holger. “Danskar och svenskar i den atlantiska slavhandeln 1650–1850.” In Globalhistoria från periferin: Norden 1600–1850, edited by Müller, Leos, Rydén, Göran, and Weiss, Holger, 49–73. Lund: Studentlitteratur, 2010.Google Scholar
Weiss, Holger. “Det svenska kolonialprojektets komplexa rum: om slaveriet under svensk flagg i slutet av 1700-talets karibiska och atlantiska värld.” Sjuttonhundratal: Nordic Yearbook for Eighteenth-Century Studies (2012): 70–71.Google Scholar
Williams, Greg H. The French Assault on American Shipping, 1793–1813: A History and Comprehensive Record of Merchant Marine Losses. Jefferson, N.C.: McFerland and Co., 2009.Google Scholar
Wilson, Victor. Commerce in Disguise: War and Trade in the Caribbean Free Port of Gustavia, 1793–1815. Åbo: Åbo Akademi University Press, 2016.Google Scholar
Antikvarisk-topografiska arkivet (Stockholm) [ATA]:Google Scholar
- F16, vol. 20 Ravet–RöhlGoogle Scholar
Archives Nationales d'Outre-mer (Aix-en-Provece) [ANOM]:Google Scholar
- Fonds Suédois de Saint-Barthélemy [FSB]:Google Scholar
- FSB 156 Serie PJ: Proces-verbaux du Conseil de JusticeGoogle Scholar
- FSB 310 Serie S: Inventaires des SuccessionsGoogle Scholar
The Military Archives of Sweden (Stockholm) [MAS]:Google Scholar
- Utländska stads- och fästningsplaner, GustaviaGoogle Scholar
Swedish National Archives (Stockholm) [SNA]:Google Scholar
- Handel och sjöfart 169 Brev från S:t Barthélemy 1790–1794Google Scholar
- S:t Barthélemysamlingen [SBS]:Google Scholar
- 1B:2 Guvernörsrapporter m.m. 1790–1800Google Scholar
- 1C Guvernör Ankarheims rapporter 1800–1811Google Scholar
- 2 Guvernör Stackelbergs rapporter 1812–1813Google Scholar
- 26A Barthélemyfonden, handlingar och räkenskaper 1801–1813Google Scholar
Uppsala University Library [UUL]:Google Scholar
- The Report of Saint Bartholomew 1804–1806Google Scholar
American State Papers (Class 4–Commerce and Navigation), VII. Washington, D.C., 1832. (https://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwsp.html, last retrieved 20.5.2019)Google Scholar
Hackett, John. Narrative of the Expedition Which Sailed from England in 1817, to Join the South American Patriots. London: John Murray, 1818.Google Scholar
Arias, Harmodio. “The Doctrine of Continuous Voyages in the Eighteenth Century.” American Journal of International Law 9:3 (1915): 583–93.Google Scholar
Bassi, Ernesto. An Aqueous Territory: Sailor Geographies and New Granada's Transimperial Greater Caribbean. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2016.Google Scholar
Benton, Lauren. Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Bergius, Olof Erik. Om Westindien. Stockholm: A. Gadelius, 1819.Google Scholar
Coatsworth, John H. “American Trade with European Colonies in the Caribbean and South America, 1790–1812.” William and Mary Quarterly 24:2 (1967): 243–66.Google Scholar
Craton, Michael. “The Caribbean Vice Admiralty Courts, 1763–1815: Indispensable Agents of an Imperial System.” PhD diss., McMaster University, 1968.Google Scholar
Elliott, Charles Burke. “The Doctrine of Continuous Voyages.” American Journal of International Law 1:1 (1906): 61–104.Google Scholar
Enthoven, Victor. “That Abominable Nest of Pirates: St. Eustatius and the North Americans, 1680–1780.” Early America Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 10:2 (2012): 239–301.Google Scholar
Green-Pedersen, Svend-Erik. “Colonial Trade under the Danish Flag: A Case Study of the Danish Slave Trade to Cuba 1790—1807.” Scandinavian Journal of History 5 (1980): 93–120.Google Scholar
Hand, Charles R. “The Kitty's Amelia: The Last Liverpool Slaver.” Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 28 (1930): 70–3.Google Scholar
Hattendorf, J. B. Saint Barthélemy and the Swedish West India Company: A Selection of Printed Documents, 1784–1814 . Delmar, N.Y.: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1994.Google Scholar
Hellström, Jan Arvid. “… åt alla christliga förvanter….” En undersökning av kolonial förvaltning, religionsvård och samfundsliv på S:t Barthélemy under den svenska perioden 1784–1878. Uppsala: Erene, 1987.Google Scholar
Hildebrand, Ingegerd. “Den svenska kolonin S:t Barthélemy och Västindiska kompaniet fram till 1796.” Lund: PhD diss., Lindstedts Universitetsbokhandel, 1951.Google Scholar
Högström, E. O. E. “S. Barthélemy under svenskt välde.” PhD diss., Uppsala University, 1888.Google Scholar
Klein, Herbert S. “North American Competition and the Characteristics of the African Slave Trade to Cuba, 1790–1794.” William and Mary Quarterly 28:1 (1971): 86–102.Google Scholar
Klein, Herbert S. “The Cuban Slave Trade in a Period of Transition, 1790–1843.” Revue française d'historie d'outre-mer 62 (1975): 67–89.Google Scholar
Klooster, Will. Illicit Riches: Dutch Trade in the Caribbean, 1648–1795. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Lavoie, Yolande. “Histoire sociale et démographique d'une communauté isolée: Saint-Barthélemy (Antilles francaises).” Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique francaise 42:3 (1989): 411–27.Google Scholar
Lavoie, Yolande, Fick, Carolyn, and Mayer, Francine-M.. “A Particular Study of Slavery in the Caribbean Island of Saint Barthélemy: 1648–1846.” Caribbean Studies 28:2 (1995): 369–403.Google Scholar
Lebel, Anne. “Saint-Barthélemy et ses archives: une connaissance historique éclatée.” Bulletin de la société d'histoire de la Guadeloupe 159 (2011): 91–102.Google Scholar
Masonen, Pekka. “Kustavilainen siirtomaapolitiikka ja Saint-Barthelemyn kuume.” Historiallinen aikakauskirja 3 (2007): 330–45.Google Scholar
Müller, Leos. Consuls, Corsairs and Commerce: The Swedish Consular Service and Long-Distance Shipping. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Uppsaliensis, 2004.Google Scholar
Pålsson, Ale. “Our Side of the Water: Political Culture and Representation in St. Barthélemy in the Early 19 th Century.” Stockholm: Stockholm University Press, 2016.Google Scholar
Pearce, Adrian J. British Trade with Spanish America, 1763–1808. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Pérotin-Dumon, Anne. “Témoignages sur la Guadeloupe en 1794.” Bulletin de la Societé d'histoire de la Guadeloupe 47 (1981): 5–33.Google Scholar
Pérotin-Dumon, Anne. “Cabotage, Contraband, and Corsairs: The Port Cities of Guadeloupe and Their Inhabitants, 1650–1800.” In Atlantic Port Cities: Economy, Culture, and Society in the Atlantic World, 1650–1850, edited by Knight, Franklin W. and Liss, Peggy K., 58–86. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Pitkin, Timothy. A Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States of America. Hartford: Charles Hosmer, 1819.Google Scholar
Rupert, Linda M. Creolization and Contraband: Curaçao in the Early Modern Atlantic World. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Schnakenbourg, Eric. “Sweden and the Atlantic: The Dynamism of Sweden's Colonial Projects in the Eighteenth Century.” In Scandinavian Colonialism and the Rise of Modernity: Small Time Agents in a Global Arena, edited by Naum, Magdalena and Nordin, Jonas M., 229–42. New York: Springer, 2013.Google Scholar
Stephen, James. War in Disguise; Or the Frauds of the Neutral Flags. London: Hatchard, 1805.Google Scholar
Thomasson, Fredrik. “‘Contre la Loi mais en considérant les Circonstances dangereuses du moment.’ The Swedish Court of Law on Saint Barthélemy around 1800.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of Caribbean Historians, Curaçao, May 2012, 6–12.Google Scholar
Tingbrand, Per. Who Was Who in St. Barthélemy during the Swedish Epoch? Stockholm: Swedish St. Barthélemy Society, 2001.Google Scholar
Wahlström, Lydia. Sverige och England under revolutionskrigens början: Bidrag till den Reuterholmska regeringens historia. Stockholm: Norstedt, 1917.Google Scholar
Wedberg, Birger. Tärningskast om liv och död. Rättshistoriska skisser. Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt and Söner, 1935.Google Scholar
Weiss, Holger. “Danskar och svenskar i den atlantiska slavhandeln 1650–1850.” In Globalhistoria från periferin: Norden 1600–1850, edited by Müller, Leos, Rydén, Göran, and Weiss, Holger, 49–73. Lund: Studentlitteratur, 2010.Google Scholar
Weiss, Holger. “Det svenska kolonialprojektets komplexa rum: om slaveriet under svensk flagg i slutet av 1700-talets karibiska och atlantiska värld.” Sjuttonhundratal: Nordic Yearbook for Eighteenth-Century Studies (2012): 70–71.Google Scholar
Williams, Greg H. The French Assault on American Shipping, 1793–1813: A History and Comprehensive Record of Merchant Marine Losses. Jefferson, N.C.: McFerland and Co., 2009.Google Scholar
Wilson, Victor. Commerce in Disguise: War and Trade in the Caribbean Free Port of Gustavia, 1793–1815. Åbo: Åbo Akademi University Press, 2016.Google Scholar