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The Atlantic Coast of German Trade: German

Rural Industry and Trade in the Atlantic, 1680
1840

Klaus Weber

Itinerario / Volume 26 / Issue 02 / July 2002, pp 99 - 119

DOI: 10.1017/S0165115300009153, Published online: 22 April 2010

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/

abstract_S0165115300009153

How to cite this article:

Klaus Weber (2002). The Atlantic Coast of German Trade: German Rural
Industry and Trade in the Atlantic, 16801840. Itinerario, 26, pp 99-119
doi:10.1017/S0165115300009153

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 99

The Atlantic Coast of German Trade

German Rural Industry and Trade in the Atlantic,
1680-1840*

KLAUS WEBER

Throughout the last decade a number of rather detailed studies on eigh-

teenth-century Atlantic merchants and merchant colonies in Atlantic port
cities has been published. The works of Jacob Price, David Hancock, Jona-
than Israel, Olivier Petre-Grenouilleau, and Manuel Bustos Rodriguez1 de-
monstrate the growing historical interest in maritime trade and Atlantic
studies. All of these works carry on the investigative traditions of the authors'
respective countries, represented, for example, by Bernard Bailyn's works
on the New England merchants, Pierre and Huguette Chaunu's and Paul
Butel's studies on the economies of the Spanish and French Atlantic, and
the investigations of Antonio Garcia-Baquero Gonzalez on the topic of
Spanish Atlantic trade. As a pervasive pattern within this field of research
it can be observed that, since the foundations had been laid with these
classical studies, the focus of historical inquiry has shifted from quantitative
investigations (that is, those on the currents of ships, goods, and precious
metals) and from studies on the legal frameworks regulating the Atlantic
trades to detailed studies of the individuals responsible for this trade. Arising
from their countries' colonial pasts, it is not surprising that most of these
author's works concentrate on the colonial trade of the Western European
sea powers, thus neglecting the central and eastern interiors of the conti-
nent. In the 1960s and 70s, some German historians, notably Hermann
Kellenbenz and Hans Pohl, published studies in this area, but it has lain
fallow ever since.2 The aim of this article is to shed some light on the
perspectives that might open up by reconsidering the influence of Atlantic
trade on Central Europe in the Early Modern period.
Until recently, scholars have doubted if a world economy actually existed
before the nineteenth century:

The international economy was poorly integrated before 1800, and

trade between the numerous units (however defined) participating
in long-range commerce was rarely a central dynamic in any of
them. [...] We would be better advised, the argument runs, to focus
in the internal organization of smaller-scale regional economic
100 KLAUS WEBER

units. For it is in the everyday lives of ordinary people far removed

from the glamour of the high seas and the counting houses of the
great merchants that the roots of modern economic growth must
be sought.3

It is precisely such 'smaller-scale regional economic units' and their inhabi-

tants which are the subject of the survey offered here. What can such a
survey contribute? Will it reveal the existence of structures present elsewhere
and largely known already? At first glance, the most remarkable political
and economic differences in the territories of the German Empire, when
compared with its western neighbours, are that they lacked the colonial
dimension which was well developed in most of the European Atlantic
nations, including even small countries like Denmark. While a number of
German states - notably Bavaria, Hessen, and Prussia, and the Baltic princi-
pality of Courland (Kurland)4 - attempted to acquire African or Caribbean
colonies; none of these attempts resulted in success. The resources of these
relatively small electoral states were too weak to meet the needs that even
modest colonial adventures would have demanded.5
Since Francois Crouzet is correct in noting that 'the eighteenth century
can truly be called the Atlantic stage of European economic development',6
yet it would be surprising if European inland areas had not in some way
been affected by this development. Scholars of German economic history,
for example, have always been aware that the bulk of the production from
the famous manufacturing regions in Germany's interior was destined for
foreign and overseas markets. The importance of these exports for the
subsistence of the population, especially in rural areas with poor soil and
climatic conditions, is reflected in the abundant scholarly literature on
German proto-industry.7 All these more recent studies focus primarily on
the internal structures of rural manufacturing: the organisation of produc-
tion processes, the dependence of rural workers and craftsmen on urban
merchants, the demographic effects of a surplus-income, the role of proto-
industrial phenomena in emergence of modern capitalism and industriali-
sation itself.8 This essay shall lead us from the counting houses of wealthy
merchants in Western European seaports to rural manufacturing regions
in German hinterlands. Examples from Westphalia, Bohemia, and Southern
Germany shall demonstrate the impact of Atlantic trade on remote villages,
and they will show its relevance on different branches of manufacturing.

Rural Industry and Foreign Trade

Despite the wide scope of literature on German proto-industries, scholars
have paid very little attention to their importance in terms of national
economy. Contemporary statistics underscore the considerable share which
exports held within the whole market for manufactured products, and they
show the countries to which these exports were directed. Eighteenth-cen-
GERMAN RURAL INDUSTRY AND TRADE IN THE ATLANTIC 101

tury Prussian record books of linen exports from the province of Silesia
clarify their important role. More than three quarters of Silesian linen was
destined for the Atlantic nations of Western Europe or for the Americas
(see Table 1). As Karin Newman's detailed analysis of the British linen
trade in late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has shown, most of the
German linen imported from Silesia and to a even wider extent from
Westphalia to London, were destined for the Americas.9 English traders
sold them in North America and in the Caribbean. In the New World,
Westphalian textiles were very much in demand and labelled as 'stout Weser
flaxen', 'true born Osnabrughs', and 'true born Tecklenburghs'.10 Newman
cites from a 1744 report on the linen trade: '[...] all the Negroes and the
poor White People [in the colonies] are generally cloathed with German
linens, from 6d to 9d an Ell, called Osnaburghs'.11 In a 1806 memorandum
to the parliament, London merchants wrote: 'The Spanish Traders are very
strongly prejudiced in favour of German linens [...] When a Spanish trader
comes into a store in a British Island, the first article he asks for is German
linens [...].'12
The flow of German textiles to French Atlantic ports followed similar
patterns. Due to the mercantilist efforts of French ministers, private busi-
nessmen set up efficient production of manufactured goods, among them
linen textiles. But in spite of French customs barriers protecting the domes-
tic market, linen from Central Europe remained one of the important
goods bargained for French staple places. According to Hamburg customs
records, linen was the major German product sent from the Elbe river to
French sea ports, followed by metal products (mainly sheet copper, of
crucial importance in shipbuilding), timber, wax, and glassware. Curiously,
approximately seventy-five per cent of the linen was shipped to Bayonne.
This volume corresponded to about forty per cent of the total of recorded
exports to France.14 In this small Biscayan free port, located between Bor-
deaux and the Spanish border, no customs duties were charged for any
goods destined for re-exportation overseas. This detail suggests that the
whole volume of goodswas to be reshipped for Atlantic markets, essentially
Hispanic and African. This argument can be further supported through
the examination of one case study, that of a French merchant house in
Cadiz, 'Simon et Arnail Fornier & Cie'. The volume of linen textiles pur-
chased, and recorded in their correspondence, totalled 12 million Reales
between 1768 and 1786. Out of this volume, commodities worth 3 millions
were bought in Hamburg, 1 million in Bremen, and 2 millions immediately
in Silesia. Linen worth some 1,5 or 2 millions derived from Holland, most
probably of Westphalian origin. Only one third of the 12 million Reales
were spent on the French textile market.15 Another example: the major
part of the freight of the 'Amiral', a slave ship leaving Bordeaux in 1743,
consisted of textiles from Hamburg. In his work on the Bordeaux slave
trade, the author Eric Saugera notes the load of the 'Amiral' as typical for
West African markets. Out of its 5,295 bales of cotton and linen, 1,440
 Table 1. Officially controlled linen exports from Silesia, including respective destinations, 1748-1788. Currency: Taler"

Year England, Holland, Italy Russia, Poland, Austria, German Total

France, Spain, Scandinavia Hungary, Switzerland Imperial
Portugal, Turkey territories
West Indies

1748/49 2.328.806 134.941 28.062 334.149 323.015 393.835 3.542.808

1752/53 3.440.993 65.356 35.963 309.379 178.219 311.317 4.341.227
1755/56 2.551.130 171.224 45.004 191.004 92.012 560.801 3.771.175
1757/58 2.723.036 91.533 89.552 343.463 75.589 180.238 3.503.411
1760/61 4.493.113 90.283 94.373 401.397 59.441 263.964 5.402.571
1766/67 2.107.667 163.985 22.020 241.820 52.156 270.152 2.857.571
1769/70 2.264.730 102.792 33.445 246.560 36.160 310.631 2.994.318
1775/76 4.329.367 153.283 76.856 253.182 20.284 229.319 5.062.291
i779/80 2.623.099 224.209 38.205 484.157 44.056 271.526 3.685.255
1782/83 3.389.434 316.153 37.470 65.460 34.145 689.784 4.532.446
1783/84 4.587.740 171.503 55.370 326.472 14.401 347.046 5.502.532
1785/86 3.734.327 411.785 110.950 447.368 33.974 468.073 5.206.477
1787/88 4.596.897 292.625 80.801 480.735 27.831 427.395 5.906.248
Total 43.130.339 2.389.672 748.071 4.335.146 991.283 4.714.087 56.308.562
Percentage 76,6% 4,2% 1,3% 7,7% 1,8% 8,4% 100%

<*>
GERMAN RURAL INDUSTRY AND TRADE IN THE ATLANTIC 103

derived from Nantes, 675 from Rouen, 260 from Amsterdam, but as much
as 2,720 from Hamburg. The rest of the freight was made up of rifles,
ammunition, iron and copper from Amsterdam (probably also made in
Germany), and French spirits.16 Nineteenth-century studies already pointed
out the importance of the slave trade for remote linen regions like Silesia.
As early as the sixteenth century, Dutch and English agents travelled as far
as Silesia to buy linen for export to Africa. In the late seventeenth century,
with the rise of the French Caribbean empire and with the massive immigra-
tion of Huguenot textile experts into Germany, Silesian brands gained even
more importance in the French Atlantic. Exploiting the refugee's know-
how, Silesian copies of Breton and Normandy linen were sold under the
name of 'brettanies' and 'ruans'.17 Linen textiles were most comfortable
to wear under the conditions of tropical climate. This and the remaining
relationships of the Huguenot immigrants to French trade were principal
factors stimulating the success of these products on colonial markets. Ham-
burg was the undisputed port for the shipment of these commodities.
Therefore, the Prussian government sponsored a canal in Brandenburg to
link the river Oder with the Elbe, in order to provide a navigable waterway
connecting Silesia directly with Hamburg and the Atlantic. It was completed
in 1668.
On foreign markets, German hardware was also of undeniable im-
portance. One of Early Modern Germany's major regions for metal manu-
factures was the County of Mark and the Duchy of Berg. These territories
were situated on the southern edge of the Ruhr area, the later seat of the
industrial revolution in Germany. The region's most common products
were blades and knives, scythes, drills, files, saws and other tools. German
manufacturers maintained a technological monopoly on iron wires and
sheet metal until late into the eighteenth century. Like the rural production
of linen and woollen clothes, metal production and processing was or-
ganised by an intensively stratified division of labour. The processing took
place in and around the cities of Iserlohn, Remscheid and Hagen. Their
maritime exports usually were shipped via Amsterdam. A list of the cus-
tomers from one of Iserlohn's major trading houses illustrates the domi-
nating Atlantic orientation of its business, and it explains why Iserlohn in
this era was known as the 'Seestadt auf dem Berge' - the maritime city on
the hill.18
In the same way as in the linen trade, the Western European countries
also absorbed most of the exported ironware. Between 1786 and 1794, they
provided between forty and forty-six per cent of the major corresponding
clients of 'Rupe & Co'. The sharp decline of the number of customers
from Northern Germany and the Hanseatic cities under the conditions of
war and blockade, in 1804, suggests that they, too, must have been maritime
export merchants (see Table 2).
The major manufacturing regions of Germany depended heavily on
export markets, particularly in Western Europe.20 How did these German
104 KLAUS WEBER

Table 2. Repartition of the customers of the Iserlohn trading company

'Johannes Rupe (Wwe.) & Co', 1786-180419

Regions 1786 1794 1804

Mark, Berg, Western Germany 41 (25%) 33 (20,5%) 81 (52%)

Northern Germany, Hamburg, Bremen 20 (12,5%) 12 (7,5%) 5 (3%)
Central and Eastern Germany 21 (13%) 22 (13,5%) 18 (11.5%)
Spain and Portugal 21 (13%) 56 (35%) 28 (18%)
France 22 (13,5%) 10 (6%) 5 (3%)
Netherlands 16 (10%) 8 (5%) 6 (4%)
Baltic Countries 17 (10,5%) 16 (10%) 12 (7.5%)
Others (U.S.A., Italy , England etc.) 5 (3%) 4 (2,5%) 1 (0,5%)

regions succeed in opening up their own access to foreign markets? These

markets actually were meant to be protected by mercantilist customs legisla-
tion of the respective nation states and - at least in France - competitive
local manufactures existed. To explore this question, it is necessary to look
at the agents of this export trade, whose records are held in the archives
of the most important foreign sea ports.21

German Rural Industrial Agents in Western European

Port Cities
Throughout the eighteenth century, considerable colonies of German mer-
chants were established in the principal port cities of France and Spain.22
In this section, a comparative introduction to the port cities Cadiz and
Bordeaux will be presented together with a brief survey to the German
communities established in both ports. In trade with colonial products,
until the 1790s, these two Bourbon sea powers dominated even over the
British. Cadiz and Bordeaux managed the bulk of Spanish and French
Atlantic trade. In both ports, numerous communities of foreign merchants
participated indirectly in the Bourbon colonial trades, because officially,
foreigners could neither trade directly with, nor immigrate to, the Spanish
and French colonies. Rather than purchasing colonial goods and precious
metals immediately in the ports of Saint-Domingue or New Spain and
selling European goods there, they had to acquiesce and do so in Cadiz
and Bordeaux, respectively, and thereby relinquish the higher profits made
on the Atlantic passage, at least officially. Due to the Bourbon familial
alliances, French merchants in Cadiz enjoyed certain privileges that gave
them advantages over other immigrants and facilitated naturalisation. Con-
sequently, they supplied the most numerous of the different foreign colo-
GERMAN RURAL INDUSTRY AND TRADE IN THE ATLANTIC 105

nies. In 1713, some 900, and in the 1770s, some 1,400 French had been
living in the Andalusian port city; about a third of them working as wholesale
merchants.23 The Italian share was large, too, but there were few wealthy
and influential wholesalers among them. The English, German, and Dutch
communities were smaller, yet to a much wider extent they were composed
of maritime traders.24 According to Spanish taxation sources, the French
were not only the most numerous foreign group, but also the most successful
merchants in Cadiz, with estimated average profits of 6,780 Pesos per trading
house in 1771. They were followed by Anglo-Irish (c. 5,410 Pesos), German
(c. 5,170 Pesos), and Scandinavian and Prussian (4,440 Pesos) merchants.25
The Flemish earned an average of 3,730 Pesos per company, the Italians
3,060 Pesos. In comparison with their foreign competitors, the profits of
Spanish traders were rather poor; they averaged only 917 Pesos in 1771.26
Related sources preserved in the Archives departementales de la Gironde
in Bordeaux allow a comparison of the communities in both cities. French
tax registers for Bordeaux from 1777 name 357 French-run merchant com-
panies, as opposed to forty-nine German, twenty-four English and Irish,
and eight Dutch. Thus, in Bordeaux the Germans held die position diat
the French claimed in Cadiz: they were the largest foreign group, and on
average their companies were the most profitably run. Germans were
charged an annual tax of about 130 Livres Tournois per company, the
Anglo-Irish 114 Livres, and the Dutch 107 Livres. In the French port city,
too, the native trading houses were those with the poorest profits: they
were charged 82,5 Livres.27 The comparatively lower profits of these French
traders, and those of the Spanish in Cadiz, may be explained in part by
the fact that only well established and successful trading houses sent mem-
bers abroad to found branches in foreign cities, whereas among the autoch-
thonous groups were small firms with a relatively modest turnover, thus
diminishing the average figures of the respective community. Nevertheless,
the difference between die French in Bordeaux and die Spanish in Cadiz
is stunning. Whereas the figures of the Germans in Bordeaux are only
about sixty per cent higher than those of their local competitors, die figures
of die French in Cadiz are more dian seven times higher dian diose of
the Spanish firms.
Over the course of the eighteenth century, at least 210 German merchants
established themselves in Bordeaux.28 Hanseatic immigration to Bordeaux
had begun slowly but steadily in die 1650s,29 and diis occurrence, together
with the French expansion into the Caribbean, is by no means accidental.
In 1655, the year of the French conquest of Saint-Domingue, formerly
Spanish Hispaniola, the Senates of the Hanseatic cities signed an important
trading agreement with France, facilitating the purchase of colonial goods
in French port cities. The French had already conquered Martinique and
Guadeloupe in 1635 and by the eighteendi century Saint-Domingue had
become the richest of die French plantation colonies, providing die raw
sugar for tiiree quarters of the world's sugar consumption. During die first
106 KLAUS WEBER

two decades of the eighteenth century, Hanseatic immigration to Bordeaux

picked up, reaching a first apex in the 1730s. The following decades of
war halted this development, but from the 1760s to the 1780s it boomed
and reached its peak, with at least eighty-two new trading houses founded
during this period. Meanwhile, there were not only Hanseatic traders
arriving on the Garonne, but also merchants from smaller trading cities in
Germany's hinterland. This reflects the broad proliferation of colonial
goods even into the.most remote rural areas of central Europe. With the
loss of Saint-Domingue in 1792, German immigration dropped off com-
pletely, and many foreign merchants established in Bordeaux went back
to their places of origin. The Hanseatic immigration to French port cities,
modest in its origins, was counterbalanced by Huguenot merchants from
South Western France who arrived in Hamburg from the 1690s onwards.30
The effects of the rapidly expanding eighteenth-century trade between
Hamburg and Bordeaux were considerable. Until about 1730, with the
general decline of Dutch dominance in maritime trade as a backdrop,
Hamburg cut out Amsterdam as Northern Europe's principal place for
sugar refining. The finished product was either destined for Baltic and
Eastern European markets or for distribution within German territories.
To satisfy these expanding markets, the Huguenots in Hamburg and the
Hanseatic community on the shores of the Garonne had to organise the
largest intra-European flow of colonial goods existing in the eighteenth
century: an enormous current of sugar, coffee, dye stuffs, tobacco and
cotton was directed from Bordeaux to Hamburg. Fruits and the famous
wines of the province of Guyenne and of the upper Garonne and Dordogne
rivers were an important complement in this trade. In secret clauses in the
1769 renewal of the Hamburg-French trade agreement, both partners reci-
procally conceded considerable reductions of customs duties. Raw and
semi-raw materials from die French Caribbean stimulated Hamburg's urban
economy. The city's calico manufactures demanded cotton, indigo, coche-
nille and timber dyes. Tobacco-works also flourished and in the 1760s about
300 sugar refineries worked French raw sugar. By the turn of the century,
dieir number grew to 400. These industries attracted labour from the city's
hinterland, and its population grew from 75,000 in 1715 to 130,000 in 1790.
Obviously, colonial goods were the most stimulating factor in the Bor-
deaux-Hamburg trade. Trade with Spain did not provide access to diese
goods, at least not in such quantities. In the Hispanic Empire the plantation
system never acquired die predominant role it had occupied in the Dutch,
English, and French economies, and this background effected Hamburg's
balance of trade. Its balance and that of the German territories trading
widi France via this port used to be negative, while trade with Spain usually
resulted in a positive balance.31 Indeed, these German foreign trade results
were due to the relative weakness of Spanish industries. Spanish domestic
and colonial markets relied heavily on supplies from non-Spanish produ-
cers.32 Just like on the Hamburg-French mercantile axis, linen textiles were
GERMAN RURAL INDUSTRY AND TRADE IN THE ATLANTIC 107

the most important and lucrative German exports to Spain from the Hansea-
tic cities Hamburg and Bremen. Westphalian suppliers organising the rural
production of these goods advised their weavers to adapt precisely to the
demands of their customers in the Hispanic world. Their linen was sold
there as 'Coletas', 'Creguelas de Westphalia', 'Lienzos a la Rosa', or 'Sanga-
las', the latter a copy of a type of cloth originally produced in the Swiss
German canton of St Gall.
The considerable impact of German commodities on Hispanic markets
was manifest in the composition of the German merchant community in
Cadiz. Computerised inventories of the holdings of the Archivo historico
provincial of Cadiz and the detailed information provided by the wills of
German merchants have allowed the compilation of a representative survey
of their origins. This survey shows that the German merchant community
was not an exclusively Hanseatic colony, as previously thought. Most of its
members derived from inland regions, notably areas that were well known
for their rural industries. Out of 158 German traders living in Cadiz between
1680 and 1830, whose geographical background could be traced, only forty-
four came from Hamburg, six from Bremen, and one from Liibeck. From
Bohemia alone, the most numerously represented inland area, another
forty-four had immigrated: as many as from Hamburg. All the Bohemians
came from the district of Leitmeritz (today: Litomerice), and within this
district mainly from the small glass manufacturing town of Haida (today:
Novy Bor) and its environs. At least twelve merchants came from the region
contigious to the Westphalian towns of Osnabruck and Bielefeld, which
were important centres of linen production. Nine traders came from the
Ammer valley, situated in Western Bavaria, seven from the Gardena valley
in South Tyrol, and five from the Black Forest, in the south-west of the
Empire (Reich) .33 The Ammer and Gardena valleys were widely known for
the wooden carved religious icons produced there, as remains the case
today. These objects were in great demand in the Catholic Hispanic World
and provided secure business. What today would be considered as precious
pieces of baroque sculpturing, were in contemporary economic reports
counted in hundredweights just as another export merchandise.54 Black
Forest merchants in Cadiz ran watchmaker's shops. One of the items which
they produced and which was most in demand was the cuckoo clock. Indeed,
the cuckoo clock was invented as early as 1730 in Furtwangen, the principal
town within the famous zone of rural clock production on the eastern slope
of the Black Forest Mountains. This rural industry, having its roots in the
seventeenth century, had developed considerably since circa 1720. In 1800,
it produced some 150,000 clocks annually, and in 1840 about 550.000.35 In
addition, in 1767 the Count of Baden-Durlach conceded privileges to found
a factory for watches in Pforzheim, situated in the Northern Black Forest.
It was managed by French and Swiss experts.36
108 KLAUS WEBER

Familial Networks Connecting Proto-industrial Production

with Atlantic Markets
The origins and the development of the distributive organisation of the
rural industries in Bohemia, Westphalia, and in the Black Forest followed
similar patterns. In all of these regions production increased in the second
half of the seventeenth century, and peddling became a common business
for many of the small yeoman farmers who were already involved in rural
manufacturing. Bohemian and Black Forest peddlers started long sales
journeys, using panniers and handcarts. Soon, they used horse-drawn carts,
and before 1700 the more successful Bohemians travelled to Trieste,
Smyrna, Russia, the Netherlands, and even England.37 Through business
contacts with merchants in Hamburg and Altona they opened up their way
to the Iberian peninsula; the first appeared in Cadiz in 1691, in Bilbao no
later than 1732.38 Throughout the eighteenth century, branches of Bohe-
mian trading houses existed in all the major ports of Spain, and in Lisbon
and Porto as well. Black Forest peddlers, too, travelled to Russia, England,
Portugal and the Ottoman Empire by the end of the seventeenth century,
and by the mid-eighteenth century they were present in North America.39
From the seventeenth century on, poor Westphalian farmers used to con-
nect migrant working with peddling. In their native region it was common
to travel to Holland for work, where wages were significantly higher than
in Germany. Large amounts of linen were sold by these 'Hollandganger',
as the labour emigrants were called. So, many of the merchants families
present in Cadiz had begun their business career as humble peddlers.
Around I720johann Arnold Ellermann, the first of the Westphalian mer-
chants traced in Cadiz, established his business.
All of these merchants organised their trade strictly within familial struc-
tures. The Ellermanns exemplify these familial networks. Their economic
and social ascent is often surprising. The Ellermann family derived from
the village of Venne, near Osnabruck - from the heart of the Westphalian
linen region. Johann Arnold Ellermann started his business in Cadiz with
a partner from Doesborgh (today Doesburg), a small town in the Dutch
province of Gelderland, though it belonged to the Prussian enclave of
Kleve. Indeed, this partnership brings into relief the Westphalian linen
trade to Holland. Johann Ellermann had at least six brothers and sisters.
As the investigation of such merchant families has shown, numerous descen-
dants in three or four consecutive generations were a typical feature and
probably necessary for their economic success. A large family offered the
opportunity to develop a widely spread family network. Ellermann's sister
Margarete lived in Hamburg as the wife of a burgher, his brother Justus
in Amsterdam, most probably as a wealthy merchant, for he possessed real
estate within the city. By 1730 Johann Arnold's brother Georg Heinrich
arrived in Cadiz, whilst another brother, Hermann, was travelling in Spanish
America, which was actually a prohibited territory for such foreigners.
GERMAN RURAL INDUSTRY AND TRADE IN THE ATLANTIC 109

Johann Arnold Ellermann moved from Cadiz to Hamburg in the 1730s,

where he became a distinguished member and in 1744 chairman of the
'Commerzdeputation', the city's chamber of commerce. In the 1740s, toge-
ther with a Hamburg partner, he sent his first own frigate to Cadiz and on
into the Mediterranean. The shipping business was kept in the family until
at least the 1790s. In 1798/99, they were among the first German ship
owners to participate in the neutral trade to Spanish America, decreed in
Madrid in 1797 to maintain economic relations with its colonies under the
conditions of war. In the 1750s, Johann Ellermann maintained correspon-
dence with Irish merchants established in Canary Islands, an important
Atlantic staple place for smuggling into the Americas and one of the major
Spanish staples for German linen.40 His son Johann Heinrich and his grand-
son Heinrich continued to run the Cadiz branch throughout the second
half of the century. His daughter Angela Isabel got married with Nikolaus
Kirchhof, a wealthy Hamburg merchant and senator, who had spent some
years in Cadiz. This marriage secured the Ellermanns' advancement into
Hamburg's highest social and political ranks. Meanwhile, the Cadiz branch
of the family had acquired urban real estate there and had invested in
Andalusian saltworks. In the taxation sources of 1771 they appear as the
most successful German trading firm of the city. Even in the 1830s the
house was still present there, and Heinrich Ellermann, wedded to a Spanish
woman, served as consul for the Hanseatic cities.41
The Westphalian Brockmann family exemplifies the merchants' close
ties to the linen production. The Brockmanns nailed from the linen trading
city of Bielefeld and had established themselves in Cadiz over the course
of three generations. In Bielefeld, they were connected with the Hoffbauer
and the van Laer families by marriage.42 Both the Hoffbauers and the van
Laers were share holders in the 'Leinenlegge'. This guild-like institution
organised the buy-up of linen from the rural weavers. Its members also
oversaw quality controls, bleaching processes, and sales of the product.
According to tax registers from the 1820s, the van Laers were die most
wealthy family in Bielefeld. In 1812, one of the Brockmann sons established
at Cadiz formed matrimonial ties with a family from the Canary Islands,
which continued serving as an important staple place for European commo-
dities in the Atlantic.43
Within the German merchant sphere in Spain, the Bohemians tended
to maintain the closest ties to their region of origin. They travelled fre-
quendy back and forth to Spain. Indeed, many of them were married to
Bohemain women who usually remained in their villages. Some of these
women even managed rural glass production in absence of their husbands
and invested their own capital. Because family members who remained in
Bohemia held shares in their relative's trading houses abroad and their
partners or family members abroad had investments in the business at
home, accounts were usually setded in Bohemia. Once a family had esta-
blished a trading post in a foreign seaport, they did not rely solely on the
110 KLAUS WEBER

trade of their own products, but diversified their range of goods. Bohemian
firms in Spain also traded Sheffield hardware, Dutch ceramics, Bohemian
and Silesian linen, cacao and tobacco, among other items. The Ellermanns,
for example, maintained a complete line of goods commissioned from the
Iserlohn ironware traders 'Rupe & Co', mentioned above. Like the Eller-
manns, some of the Bohemians even succeeded in penetrating the Spanish
monopoly and established a branch in Lima in 1784. The first Bohemian
company established itself in Mexico City in 1787. In this case, there is
some indication that Spanish merchants had acted as front men. Certainly,
these Spaniards had contributed their own capital to the Mexican enter-
prise.44
The German merchant colonies in Bordeaux and Cadiz shared signifi-
cantly different backgrounds. In Bordeaux, only a few of the 144 German
merchants investigated (out of the complete sample of 226 traders for the
years between 1680 and 1830) derived from manufacture regions. More
commonly, they represented German trading cities situated on navigable
waterways, either on the coast or in the interior. But even in Bordeaux the
Hanseats hardly outnumbered the other Germans. Out of the 144 mer-
chants examined, seventy-three were from the Hanseatic cities: fifty-four
from Hamburg, fourteen from Bremen, and five from Lubeck. Next to
these sea ports Frankfurt had twelve merchants, Magdeburg eight, Stras-
bourg and Stettin each had five, Danzig four, Berlin three, and Basle and
Kassel each had two. The home towns of the remaining twelve were from
all over Germany, including tiny places like Wunsiedel in Franconia and
Grofiglogau on the Silesian tract of the Oder river.45 The geographic reparti-
tion of the Germans in Bordeaux reflects the economic function of this
port. They were the agents of a distributive network covering the German
territories, organising the sale of exotic consumer goods like coffee and
sugar. These goods had become increasingly popular during the eighteenth
century, even among the rural population. Indeed, the areas of proto-
industrialisation were areas where rural consumption of colonial products
had first taken off. On the one hand, it was the surplus income that allowed
proto-industrial workers to acquire these still prestigious goods; on the
other, the merchants who exported rural manufactured goods to the Atlan-
tic very frequendy were remunerated with bartered colonial goods. At times,
in a kind of truck system, workers were even forced to accept such goods
instead of cash payment.46
In terms of national economy, it is clear that rural industries provided
the purchasing power for participating in the consumption of the Adantic
plantation products to a considerable number of people. This matches well
with the trading balances with Spain and France mentioned above: through
the export of manufactured goods, Spanish Pesos from Peruvian and Mexi-
can silver mines flowed into German economies, thus allowing die import
of consumer goods from French Adantic ports. Contemporary cameralist
writers were also very much aware of this situation. As a counsellor in
GERMAN RURAL INDUSTRY AND TRADE IN THE ATLANTIC 111

Hessen put it: the linen trade was considered as the 'Hessian Peru and
East India', the 'principal way to channel Spanish gold and silver into our
treasuries'.47

Atlantic Slave Trade and the Central European Calico Industry

The deep integration of the German merchants in Bordeaux into the
Atlantic economy is exemplified by their participation in the plantation
system and the African slave trade. The Dravemann and Overmann families,
who were among the most successful Germans in Bordeaux, created ship-
ping companies for these purposes. Between 1754 and 1824, there were
at least twenty-nine German slaving expeditions organised from the Garon-
ne.48 The slave shipping company 'Romberg, Bapst & Cie', founded in
1783, managed and partly even acquired about twenty cotton and indigo
plantations on Saint-Domingue.49 This company was an integral part of the
Early Modern multinational trust of Friedrich von Romberg, and remained
so until the Saint-Domingue slave rebellion of 1792. Friedrich Romberg,
a true entrepreneur, was born 1729 in the village Sundwig near Iserlohn.
In 1756 he moved to Brussels, where in 1765 he founded a haulage company
that linked Switzerland and Northern Italy with the Austrian Netherlands.
By 1780, it employed some 200 horses. During the American War he set
up his own shipping company and sailed under the neutral Imperial
Austrian flag. From the Emperor he received a noble title in 1784 - a
common feature among the successful maritime traders of the time. Mean-
while, he invested in German textile industry and maintained commercial
relations with the ironware traders of his hometown, notably with the
already mentioned 'Rupe & Co'. In Brussels, his son Henry managed the
manufacture of calicoes, his other son Frederic ran a maritime assurance
company in Bruges.
Romberg oversaw slave shipping to the French Caribbean and Cuba not
only from Bordeaux, but also from Ghent. Within his own empire of comple-
mentary enterprises, Romberg could extract profits from the various sectors
of the plantation economy: production and export of manufactures to the
Adantic, shipping, slave trade, production of colonial goods and dieir
introduction to European markets. His haulage company even transported
these wares into the hinterland. Though his trust suffered a serious blow
from the collapse of the French Atlantic economy in the 1790s, he managed
to invest money into 'biens nationaux', real estate confiscated from the
enemies of the French Revolution and then auctioned off to private inves-
tors.50
Due to the capital demanding nature of die plantation economy, some
important Frankfurt merchant bankers opened branches in the Bordeaux
colony. Johann Jacob von Bedimann (1717-1792), shipping entrepeneur
and consul of the Emperor, was a brother of die 'Gebruder Bedimann',
who had been established as bankers in Frankfurt since 1748. Bethmanns
112 KLAUS WEBER

advancement into the first ranks of the Bordeaux shipping magnates was
facilitated by his marriage to Elisabeth Desclaux, a daughter of one of the
wealthiest traders and ship owners in town. Bethmann had been one of
the major financial supporters of the Romberg shipping company since
1789, and in the late 1790s die efforts to save Romberg's firm nearly ruined
him. The Metzlers, another powerful Frankfurt banking family, also had
branches in Bordeaux and Saint-Domingue. They were connected to the
Boyer family by marriage. The Boyers were Huguenots from the Dordogne
who maintained a trading house in Hamburg, with its principal business
in sugar trade and sugar processing. The establishment of familial networks
such as these was indispensable for social and economic integration of
merchants at home and abroad.51
If there existed a close relation of the German merchants in Bordeaux
to German rural industries, it was the one to the calico production, notably
developed in Alsatia and in Northern Switzerland from Neuchatel to St
Gall, and in Saxony. Although Alsatia belonged to France, it was German-
speaking, and it was situated outside of the French customs frontiers. To-
gether with German-speaking Switzerland and the neighbouring German
regions, it formed one enormous region of linen and cotton production.
Swiss merchant bankers and textile producers maintained close relations
to die German community in Bordeaux, and to Nantes as die principal
port of departure for French slave shipping expeditions.52 The whole com-
plex became increasingly linked to die African slave trade, if it had not
been so already in its beginnings. On African coasts, calicoes were one of
die principal commodities. Especially in die 1770s and 1780s, considerable
Swiss capital was invested into French slave shipping.53 These implications
are reflected in the development of the familial networks of the German
merchants. In 1776, Johann Jakop Schlieper, a partner of the Ellermann
company in Cadiz and originating from Benfeld in Alsatia, married his
daughter Franziska Maria to Prudencio Benjamin Delaville, one of the most
wealthy French merchants in Cadiz. Delaville and his family in Nantes were
well-established slave traders. By the marriage of Prudencio widi Franziska
Maria tiiey tied close relations to die calico region on die upper Rhine. In
Cadiz, Prudencio Benjamin Delaville was one of the principal members of
die 'Compania Gaditana de Negros', which in die 1760s and 1770s had
supplied Cuba and Saint-Domingue with some 4,000 African slaves. His
bride Franziska Maria Schlieper was fit out widi a dowry of 60,559 Pesos,
which even among die wealtiiy Cadiz merchant constituted an extraordinary

Conclusion
The calico producing province of Alsatia, die linen region of Osnabriick
and Bielefeld in Westphalia, and die county of Mark widi its famous Iserlohn
ironworks, share a common feature: diey were situated on the outside of
GERMAN RURAL INDUSTRY AND TRADE IN THE ATLANTIC 113

the customs frontiers of France and Prussia, the states they actually belonged
to.55 Even their own products were subject to the import duties levied when
entering the core territories. As a result, their industries were forced to
turn to overseas markets. This orientation was very much furthered by the
effects of the price revolution: all of these regions were situated on the
eastern periphery of the Adantic world, and therefore they were placed
close to the lower end of the differential of wages and prices that stretched
from the Spanish American silver mines across the Adantic to Eastern
Europe. On the Adantic markets Alsatian, Westphalian or Silesian textile
products were more competitive than their French or even Spanish counter-
parts.56
The German interior territories were by no means disadvantaged because
of their geographical distance from Atlantic shores, although many of them
hardly enjoyed any advantage from the mercantilist politics of their respec-
tive governments. On the contrary: their location on the periphery had
stimulated their rural export industries, and the economic politics of absolu-
tist states like Prussia probably were more burden than boon. Silesian
businessmen, for example, had litde interest in participating in the state-
controlled maritime trading companies which Frederick the Great intended
to create to monopolise commerce with Cadiz and Lisbon.57 It is thus not
surprising that hardly any of the German merchants in both Cadiz and
Bordeaux came from the central provinces of Prussia which, according to
the still influential nineteenth-century historiography, were an example of
a successful stimulation of manufactures and industry by the mercantilist
state. This positive interpretation of Prussian economic policy has already
been refuted and die survey of German merchants abroad, as presented
here, confirms die results of recent studies.58 Obviously, rural export indus-
tries developed best in the customs enclaves of the larger states and in
many of the small German states like Baden, Berg, or Wurttemberg. The
deep integration of these regions into the Adantic economy developed out
of the general conditions of international and intercontinental labour com-
petition, not out of any state interventions.
Because none of the German states had colonies tiiat could have served
as an Adantic oudet for exports, German industries had to send their agents
into seaports like Cadiz and Bordeaux. This would explain why the back-
ground of the German maritime traders differed so much from diat of die
British, French or Dutch. None of the twenty-diree merchants of die Boyd,
Scott, Oswald, and Grant families investigated by David Hancock main-
tained any direct relations to manufacturers, nor can anydiing similar be
traced in die five generations of die Perry family, studied by Jacob Price.59
While, they too, were active in shipping and slave-trading, they acquired
plantations in the Caribbean and estates in Great Britain and aspired to
become landed gentry, not manufacturing magnates. The existence of the
British colonial empire did not require them to develop vertical networks
linking the production of goods with markets. They were free to buy manu-
114 KLAUS WEBER

factured goods wherever they wished, including in Germany, and to have

them shipped to their own colonies.60 This was different for German mer-
chants: such networks, circumventing the mercantilist barriers that pro-
tected the colonial markets of Western European countries, were necessary
as the only means to enter into the colonial Atlantic. By marrying daughters
of French and Spanish merchants or by commercial association with such
merchants, they acquired legal access to these markets. Another approach
was the naturalisation of their children born in Spain or in France. Bohe-
mian traders, who maintained a practice of rather strict endogamy, used
Spanish intermediaries when establishing dieir own branches in Mexico.61
Once introduced into Adantic trade, most of the Germans continued to
concentrate on the export of their own commodities, and they did so with
considerable success. Clearly, it was much more difficult for them to enter
into the elite of die Adantic merchants and invest into plantation and slave-
trading, even diough some of them, like the Romberg, succeeded in doing
so. It would seem then, that mercantilist legislation managed to protect
this sector, but it failed to exclude Central European commodities.
Immediately after the independence of the Spanish American colonies,
German traders moved into these markets, now officially opened to free
trade. Very soon, Prussia installed relations to the recendy independent
republics. Because such politics were at odds with Berlin's position widiin
die Holy Alliance, in tiieir beginnings they were disguised as merely econo-
mical.62 According to 1836 reports from die Foreign Office in Berlin, Prussia
alone controlled about twenty-five percent of Mexico's import and export
trade. Germany, as a whole, controlled one third. As a victor in the Napoleo-
nic Wars, Prussia had incorporated the important Rhineland provinces,
dius strengdiening her economic power considerably.63 Hanseatic reports
from the 1860s claimed that German wholesalers controlled even three
quarters of die Mexican import trade.64 These figures were probably much
exaggerated, but diere is no doubt that, in the course of the first three
decades of die nineteendi century, Germany had become one of the major
export nations, competing successfully widi England and die United States
on international markets. The traditional connection between the rural
industries of die German territories and Western European and Atlantic
markets might help to explain the success of die fledgling German indus-
tries on die markets of die newly independent Latin American nations,
along widi Germany's ascent into the first ranks of imperialist nations.
GERMAN RURAL INDUSTRY AND TRADE IN THE ATLANTIC 115

Notes

* The investigation presented here has been made possible by financial support from the
'Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst' (DAAD) and the 'Institut fur Europaische
Geschichte' in Mainz. Support from the Mainz institute has been rendered in the context
of a research project on European elites ('Kontinuitaten oder revolutionarer Bruch? Eliten
im Ubergang vom Ancien Regime zur Moderne, 1750-1850'), supported by the funds of
the 'Gerda Henkel Stiftung'. Further I am very grateful to Dr William O'Reilly (NUI
Galway) for revising the manuscript.

1 Jacob Price, Perry of London. A Family and a Firm on the Seaborn Frontier, 1615-1753 (Harvard
Historical Studies, 111) (Cambridge - London 1992). David Hancock, Citizens of the World.
London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735-1785 (Cambridge
1995). Olivier Petre-Grenouilleau, Nantes au temps de la traite des noir (Paris 1998). Manuel
Bustos Rodriguez, Los comerciantes de la Carrera de Indias en el Cadiz del siglo XVIII (1713-
1775) (Cadiz 1995).
2 Hans Pohl, Die Beziehungen Hamburgs zu Spanien und dem Spanischen Ametiha in der Zeit von
1740 bis 1806 (= VSWG, Beiheft 45) (Wiesbaden 1963). Frauke Rohlk, Schijfahrt und Handel
zvnschen Hamburg und den Niederlanden in der zweiten Hdlfte des 18. und zu Beginn des 19.
Jahrhunderts (= VSWG, Beiheft 60) (Wiesbaden 1973). Otto-Ernst Krawehl, Hamburgs Schiffs-
und Warenverkehr mil England und den engUschen Kolonien 1840-1860 (Cologne -Vienna 1977).
3 Russell R. Menard, 'Transport Costs and Long-range Trade, 1300-1800: Was There a
European 'Transport Revolution" in the Early Modern Era?' in: James D. Tracy ed., The
Political Economy of Merchant Empires (Cambridge - New York u. a. 1991) 228-275, see 228.
On this debate see also Patrick O'Brien, 'European Economic Development: The Contribu-
tion of the Periphery', Economic History Review, 2nd series, 35 (1982) 1-18.
4 Courland did not belong to the Reich, but it was governed by a German dynasty.
5 Hermann Kellenbenz, 'Die Brandenburger auf St. Thomas', Jahrbuch fur Geschichte von
Staat, Wirtschaft u. Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas 2 (1965) 196-217. Martin Vogt, 'Brandenburg
in Ubersee. Kolonialplane deutscher Fursten im 17. Jahrhundert' in: Christof Dipper,
Martin Vogt eds, Entdeckungen und friihe Kolonisation (= Schriftenreihe Wissenschaft und
Technik 63) (Darmstadt 1993) 345-379. See also Heinz Duchhardt, 'Afrika und die deut-
schen Kolonialprobleme der 2. Halfte des 17. Jahrhunderts', Archiv fur Kulturgeschichte 68
(1986) 119-135. August L. Schlozer, 'Neu Deutschland oder Hanauisch Indien und D. Be-
cher' in: A.L. Schlozer, Briefwechsel meist historischen und politischen Inhalts. Zweiter Teil VII-
VIII (Gottingen 1777) 159-178. Eduard Jacobi, 'Ein bayrisches Kolonialunternehmen im
17. Jahrhundert', Beitrdge zur Kolonialpolitik und Kolonialwirtschaft 5 (1903) 184-192 and
200-202. Otto H. Mattiesen, Die Kolonial- und Uberseepolitik der kurldndischen Herzoge im 17.
und 18. fahrhundert (= Schriftenreihe der Stadt der Auslandsdeutschen 6). Ed. by Auslands-
institut der Auslandsdeutschen (Stuttgart 1940).
6 Francois Crouzet, 'Wars, Blockade, and Economic Change in Europe, 1792-1815' in:
Stanley Engerman ed., Trade and the Industrial Revolution, 1700-185011 (Cheltenham 1996)
191-212, see 192.
7 Franklin F. Mendels, 'Protoindustrialisation: The First Phase of the Industrialisation Pro-
cess', foumal of Economic History 32 (1972) 241-261. Peter Kriedte, Hans Medick, Jurgen
Schlumbohm, Industrialisierungvorder Industrialisierung. Gewerbliche Warenproduktion auf dem
Lande in derFormationsperiode des Kapitalismus (Gottingen 1978). Wolfgang Mager, 'Proto-
industrialisierung und Protoindustrie. Vom Nutzen und Nachteil zweier Konzepte', Ge-
schichte und Gesellschaft 14 (1988) 273-303. Karl Ditt, Sidney Pollard eds, Von der Heimarbeit
in die Fabrik: Industrialisierung und Arbeiterschaft in Leinen- und Baumwollregionen West- und
Milteleuropas wdhrenddes 18. und 19.Jahrhunderts (Paderborn 1992). MarkusCerman, Shelag
C. Ogilvie, Proto-IndustrialisierunginEuropa. IndustrialisierungvordemFabrikzeitalter (= Histori-
sche Sozialkunde 5) (Vienna 1994). Hans Medick, Weben und Uberleben in Laichingen 1650-
1900. Lokalgeschichtealsallgemeine Geschichte (Gottingen 1996). Ibid., 'Weaving and Surviving
in Laichingen, 1650-1900: Micro-History as History and as Research Experience' in: James
116 KLAUS WEBER

C. Scott, Nina Blatt eds, Agrarian Studies. Synthetic Work at the Cutting Edge (Yale - London
2001) 283-296.
8 For the latest survey of the debates see: Peter Kriedte, Hans Medick, Jurgen Schlumbohm,
'Eine Forschungslandschaft in Bewegung. Die Proto-Industrialisierung am Ende des 20.
Jahrhunderts', Jahrbuch fur Wirischaftgeschichte 1998/2 (special issue: Proto-Industrialisie-
rung) 9-21.
9 Karin Newman, Anglo-Hamburg Trade in the Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries
(London PhD thesis 1979) 202. The author concludes: 'In the eighteenth century more
than ninety percent of imported Osnabrig linen was re-exported to the colonies.' Ibid.,
198-199.
10 Edith Schmitz, Leinengewerbe und Leinenhandel in Nordwestdeutschland (= Schriften zur rhei-
nisch-westfalischen Wirtschaftsgeschichte 8) (Cologne 1967) 33, 86, 92.
11 Newman, Anglo-Hamburg Trade, 200.
12 Otto-Ernst Krawehl, Hamburgs Schiffs- und Warenverkehr mil England und den englischen
Kolonien 1840-1860, 441.
13 Alfred Zimmermann, Bluthe und Verfall desLeinengewerbes in Schlesien. Cewerbe- und Handels-
politik dreierjahrhunderte (Breslau 1885) 460-467. The records do not include Silesian yarn
exports, which were another important factor in the economy of this territory.
14 Staatsarchiv der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg (SAH), Amiralitatskollegium, 371-372,
F6, vol. 18. A great deal of the Hamburg trade was exonerated from customs duties.
Nevertheless, the records, essentially covering the commission business, do reflect quite
well the relative shares of the different products in the total of the Hamburg maritime
trade. The volume consulted contains the records of the year 1753. Spot checks have
shown that the general tendencies hardly altered during these years, unless wars caused
significant deviations of the currents of commodities. For further information on this
source see Klaus Weber, 'Les livres douaniers de l'amiraute de Hambourg au XVIIIe
siecle, une source de grande valeur encore inexploitee', Bulletin du Centre d'Histoire des
Espaces Atlantiques, nouvelle serie 9 (1999) 93-126. See also Jurgen Schneider, Otto-Ernst
Krawehl, Markus Denzel, Statistic des Hamburger seewdrtigenEinfuhrhandelsim 18. Jahrhundert
(St. Katharinen 2001).
15 Robert Chamboredon, 'Une societe de commerce languedocienne a Cadix: Simon et
Arnail Fornier et Cie (Nov. 1768 - Mars 1786)' in: Antonio Garcia-Baquero Gonzalez ed.,
La burguesia de negodos en la Andalutia de la ilustracion II (Cadiz 1991) 35-53, see 35, 49.
16 Eric Saugera, Bordeaux port negrier. Chronologie, economic, ideologic, XVIIe-XIXe siecles (Biarritz
- Paris 1995) 246, 352.
17 Hermann Fechner: Wirtschaftsgeschichte der preufiischen Provinz Schlesien in der Zeit ihrer
provinziellen Selbstdndigkeit 1741-1806 (Breslau 1907) 5-6. Zimmermann, Leinengewerbe, 20,
64.
18 Karl Heinrich Kaufhold, Das Metallgewerbe der Orafschaft Mark im 18. undfruhen 19. Jahrhun-
dert (= Vortragsreihe der Gesellschaft fur Westfalische Wirtschaftsgeschichte e.V., Heft
20) (Dortmund 1976). Gisela Lange, Das Idndliche Gewerbe in der Orafschaft Mark am
Vorabend der Industrialisierung (= Schriften zur rheinisch-westfalischen Wirtschafts-
geschichte, Bd. 29) (Koln 1976). Wilfried Reininghaus, DieStadt Iserlohn und ihre Kaufleute
. (1700-1815) (Munster 1995).
19 Reininghaus, Iserlohn, 585, table 11; percentages rounded to 0.5.
20 Wolfgang Zorn, 'Schwerpunkte der deutschen Ausfuhrindustrie im 18. Jahrhundert',
Jahrbucher fur Nationalokonomie und Statistik, 173 (1961) 421-447. Hermann Kellenbenz,
'Der deutsche Aufienhandel gegen Ausgang des 18. Jahrhunderts' in: Friedrich Lutge
ed.,Forschungen zurSozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte8 (Stuttgart 1964) 6-60. See also Crouzet,
Wars.
21 For example: Archives departementales de la Gironde (Bordeaux), Archivo historico
provincial de Cadiz, Archivo Foral de Bilbao.
22 Alfred Leroux, La colonie germanique de Bordeaux. Etude hislorique, juridique, economique
(Bordeaux 1918). Wilhelm von den Driesch, Die auslandischen Kaufleute wdhrend des 18.
Jahrhunderts in Spanien und ihre Beteiligung am Kolonialhandel (Cologne - Vienna 1972).
GERMAN RURAL INDUSTRY AND TRADE IN THE ATLANTIC 117

23 Antonio Garcia-Baquero Gonzalez, Pedro Collado Villalta, 'Les Francais a Cadix au XVIIIe
siecle: la colonie marchande' in: Les Francois en Espagne (ed. du C.N.R.S.) (Paris 1990)
178, 182-183. The total of the French community in 1791 counted some 2,700, many of
them working as employees in the trading houses of their compatriots.
24 Recent studies on the Dutch and German colonies have shown that they were much
more numerous than previously thought. From 1700 to 1800 there have been living some
650 Netherlander, at least 250 of them wholesale merchants. In the same period, there
were established 120 German wholesalers at least. Ana Crespo Solana, Entre Cadiz y los
Paises Bajos. Una comunidad mercantil en la ciudad de la ilustracion (Cadiz 2001) 327-338.
Klaus Weber, Deutsche Kaufmannsfamilien im atlantischen Manufaktur- und Kolonialwarenhan-
del: Netzwerke zwischen Hamburg, Cadiz und Bordeaux (1715-1830) (PhD thesis, Hamburg
2001) 357-361. Similar results might be expected of a more detailed investigation of the
Anglo-Irish colony.
25 The source did not include the Prussians with the Germans, but rather listed them with
the Scandinavians.
26 Julian B. Ruiz Rivera, Manuela Cristina Garcia Bernal, Cargadores a Indias (Madrid 1992)
248-250. Antonio Garcia-Baquero Gonzalez: Cadiz y el Atldntico (1717-1778) I (Cadiz 1988)
497-499. These figures have been extracted from official taxation documents. So it may
be suggested that the actual profits were significantly higher.
27 Archives departementales de la Gironde, C2792 (Rolle de la Capitation de Messieurs les
armateurs, assureurs ...). The capitation taxed natives and foreigners equally.
28 Weber, Kaufmannsfamilien, 368-375.
29 Peter Voss, 'Les raffineurs de Sucre allemands a Bordeaux au XVIIe siecle' in: Jean-Pierre
Sanchez ed., Dans le sillage de Colomb. L'Europe du Ponanl el la decouverte du Nouveau Monde
(1450-1650). Actesdu Colloqueinternational Universite de Rennes II, 5, 6et 7mat 1992 (Rennes
1995) 237-246. Peter Voss, Bordeaux et Us villes hansealiques, 1672-1715. Contribution a
Vhistoire maritime de I'Europe du Nord-Ouest (PhD thesis, Bordeaux 1995).
30 With the decline of Spain as a hegemonial power, these Frenchmen were to replace the
Portuguese Sephardic community in Hamburg. With their excellent relations into the
Iberic empires these Jewish merchants had been the city's principal suppliers of colonial
goods from the New World. During the seventeenth century, they were well tolerated
and respected within the walls of the Lutheran Hanseatic city - probably more respected
than the few Catholic residents. By the end of this period, probably as a result of religious
intolerance and criticism disguising economic interests, most of the Hamburg Sephardic
Jews had left the lower Elbe to settle in Amsterdam, including most wealthy merchants
like the Texeira family.
31 Prior to the 1790s, Hamburg customs records give hardly any account of Spanish supplies
of the principal plantation product sugar. On the contrary, sugar was sent in smaller
quantities from Hamburg to Spain. SAH, Amiralitatskollegium,.371-2, F6, vol. 18 (1753),
vol. 20 (1755), vol. 23 (1762), vol. 24 (1763), vol. 25 (1769).
32 Wool and cotton manufacturing, some of which indicated patterns of proto-industrialisa-
tion, had developed even in some regions of Colonial Mexico and Peru, but due to the
relatively high level of wages in Spanish America and to the restrictions on inter-colonial
trade, their products were destined for local and regional markets only. From the early
1800s on, imports of cheap British cotton textile caused a decline of these textile econo-
mies. Guy Thomson, 'The Cotton Textile Industry in Puebla During the Eighteenth and.
Early Nineteenth Centuries' in: Nils Jacobsen, Hans-Jiirgen Puhle eds, The Economies of
Mexico and Peru During the Late Colonial Period, 1760-1810 (Berlin 1986) 169-202. Brooke
Larson, 'The Cotton Textile Industry of Cochabamba, 1770-1810: The Opportunities and
Limits of Growth' in: Jacobsen, Puhle, Economies, 151-168. For a survey see jochen MeiBner,
'Zum Problem der Proto-Industrialisierung im kolonialen Hispano-Amerika' (unpu-
blished manuscript, c. 15 pp.).
33 Weber, Kaufmannsfamilien, 357-362, see map on 402.
34 On the Ammer valley see Thomas A. Merk, Otto Stadler, Der Pfaffeniuinkel (Hamburg
1996) 68. On Tyrol see Erich Egg: Manufakturen in Tirol. Zur Wirtschaftsgeschichte
118 KLAUS WEBER

Tirols im Vormarz in: Huter, Franz/Zwanowetz, Georg eds, Erzeugung, Verkehr und Handel
in der Geschichte der Alpenlander (Innsbruck 1977) 125-145, see 141.
35 Richard Muhe, Helmut Kahler, Deutsches UhrenmuseumFurtwangen (= Museum, April 1987)
(Miinchen 1987) 69.
36 Wolfgang Pieper, Die Geschichte der Pforzheimer Uhrenindustrie, 1767-1992 (Baden-Baden
1992) 28-46.
37 Edmund Schebek, Bohmens Glasindustrie und Glashandel (Prague 1878, reprint Frank-
furt/M. 1969) 133-134. Ludwig Schlesinger, 'Reisebeschreibung eines deutschbohmi-
schen Glasschneiders', Mittheilungen des Vereinsfur Geschichte derDeutschen in B6hmenV\\\
(1870) 220-235. Otto Quelle, 'Die Faktoreien der sudetendeutschen Glashandler in Spa-
nien und Portugal', Ibero-amerikanisches Archiv IX (1937/38) 387-391, see 388.
38 For Cadiz see Schlesinger, Reisebeschreibung 222-226. For Bilbao see Archivo Foral, Bilbao,
Varios, Consulado, Libros (libro Manual de la Averia), sign. CB 220, fol. 31.
39 Rolf Walter, Trager und Formen des sudwestdeutschen Wanderhandels in historischer
Perspektive' in: Wilfried Reininghaused., Wanderhandel inEuropa: Beitrdgezur wissenschaft-
lichen Tagung in Ibbenburen, Mettingen, Recke und Hopsten vom 9.-11. Oktober 1992 (Hagen
1993) 101-116. See map on markets for Black Forest clocks, 1740-1760, 105.
40 In 1753, Cadiz received some forty-seven per cent of Hamburg's duty-paid linen exports
to Spain, while thirty-three per cent were shipped to the Canary islands. SAH, Amiralitats-
kollegium, 371-372, F6, vol. 18 (1753).
41 Weber, Kaufmannsfamilien, 120-124.
42 Archivo Historico Provincial de Cadiz, Protocolos notariales, sign. 1070, fol. illeg.; sign.
3213, fol. 1417-1427.
43 Reinhard Vogelsang, Geschichte der Stadt Bielefeld I: Von den Anfdngen bis zur Mitte des 19.
Jahrhunderts (Bielefeld 1989) 259. Weber, Kaufmannsfamilien, 146, 149. Agustin Guimera
Ravina, 'La burguesia mercantil canaria en la etapa de libre comercio (1765-1824): Una
aproximacion asuestudio' in:JosepFontanaed.,7 'ComercioLibre'entre Espaiia yaAmerica
(Madrid 1986) 261-287.
44 Weber, Kaufmannsfamilien, 130-141.
45 Weber, Kaufmannsfamilien, 368-375, see map 403.
46 Kriedte, Medick, Schlumbohm, Industrialisierung, 141-150. Jorg Ludwig, Amerikanische
Kolonialwaren in Sachsen 1700-1850 (Leipzig 1998) 54.
47 Kriedte, Medick, Schlumbohm, Industrialisierung, quoted page 86 as the 'hessische Peru
und Ostindien', 'der Hauptcanal, durch welchen spanisches Gold und Silber in unsere
Cassen flieBt.
48 Saugera', Bordeaux, 351-362. Weber, Kaufmannsfamilien, 367.
49 Francoise Thesee, Negociants bordelais et colons de Saint-Domingue. Liasons d'habitation. La
maison Henry Romberg, Babst & Cie. 1783-1793 (Paris 1972) 46-47, 212-214.
50 Thesee, Negociants, 210-211.
51 Wolfgang Henninger: Johann Jakob von Bethmann 1717-1792. Kaufmann, Reeder und kaiser-
licher Konsul in Bordeaux (Bochum 1993).
52 Olivier Petre-Grenouilleau, L'argent de la traite. Milieu negrier, capitalisme et developpement:
un modele (Paris 1996) 58.
53 Herbert Luthy, La banqueprotestante en France de la revocation de I 'Edit de Nantes a la Revolution
(Paris 1959 and 1961). See volume 1,69,76,339 and volume II, 110-128. Beatrice Veyrassat,
Negociants etfabricants dans I'industrie cotonniere suisse, 1760-1840. Aux origines financiers de
Industrialisation (Lausanne 1982) 98, 116-118, 304.
54 Michel Zylberberg, Une si douce domination: Les milieux d'affaires francais et I'Espagne vers
1780-1808 (Paris 1993) 190-191, 478-479. Weber, Kaufmannsfamilien, 384-385.
55 It has to be noted that in the eighteenth century, even the Swiss principality Neuchatel
with its cotton manufactures was subject to the King of Prussia. Bohemia and Silesia,
too, were situated on the fringes of the Habsburg Empire. When Silesia was conquered
and annexed by Frederick the Great in 1742, it was already a flourishing manufacturing
region, but even subject to Prussia it enjoyed provincial autonomy until 1806.
56 These external conditions had an impact on the French sugar economy, too. French
GERMAN RURAL INDUSTRY AND TRADE IN THE ATLANTIC 119

Huguenot merchants established in Hamburg imported mainly raw sugar, instead of

white sugar already refined in France. They preferred to process it in the Hanseatic port
city, where they, too, could take advantage of labour costs that were significantly lower
than in the French coastal regions or in Amsterdam. In addition, Hamburg refineries
could rely on cheap British coal, whereas cities like Bordeaux and Nantes depended on
sulphurous and relatively expensive French variety. According to Hamburg customs
records, the Huguenots heavily dominated Hamburg imports of sugar, indigo, cotton,
coffee, and wine. In the 1750s, at least two thirds of the recorded sugar imports were
controlled by members of the French community. The figures are subject to the restric-
tions mentioned in footnote 14. Only during the Seven Years' War, when the sugar from
the Caribbean arrived in Hamburg via London, were the Huguenots deprived of this
profitable sugar trade; see Weber, Limes douaniers, 101-104. This raw sugar was handed
over to German refiners as credit, and it remained in merchant's possession until it was
sold as a finished product; see Christian Lorenz, 'Zuckerraffination in Deutschland im
18. Jahrhundert. Proceedings of the "Tagung des Irseer Arbeitskeises fur vorindustrielle
Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte, 22.-24.03.2002: Vorindustrielle Produktion und Arbeits-
organsisation"', unpublished. Eighteenth-century Hamburg with its hundreds of sugar
refineries and its calico industries may be pardy considered as a French-run sweat-shop
and as an example for Early Modern globalisation.
57 Hermann Fechner, Wirtschaftsgeschichte der preufiischen Provinz Schksien in der Zeit ihrer
provinziellm Unabhdngigkeit 1741-1806 (Breslau 1907) 208-209, 217-219.
58 This conclusion does confirm the results that Hans Medick got out of his detailed study
of a delimited Swabian rural manufacture region. See Medick, Laichingm, 41-43. Most
prominent in German nineteenth-century economic history has been Gustav Schmoller's
(1838-1917) work The Mercantile System and its Historical Significance Illustrated Chiefly from
Prussian History (reprint Fairfield 1989) emphasising on the economic policy of Frederick
the Great. For another disproval of Schmoller see Martin Kutz, Deutschlands Aufienhandel
von derfranzosischen Revolution bis zur Grundung des Zollvereins. Eine statistische Strukturunter-
suchung zur vorindustriellen Zeit (=VSWG, Beiheft 61) (Wiesbaden 1974) 4, 12-15.
59 David Hancock, Citizens of the World. London Merchants and the Integration of the British
Atlantic Community, 1735-1785 (Cambridge 1995). Price, Perry. See also Bernard Baylin,
The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century (New York 1964) 81, 100-103. The
same is true for the Dutch merchants studied by Claudia Schnurmann, AtlantischeWelten:
Engldnder und Niederlander im amerikanisch-atlantischen Raum 1648-1713 (= Wirtschafts- und
Sozialhistorische Studien 9) (Cologne - Weimar - Vienna 1998).
60 Indeed, concerning the exports that were realised by the Perry family in 1697, Jacob
Price stated: 'The most valuable single category was English woolens [...], but for physical
volume we cannot but be impressed by the over 30,000 yards of ozenbrigs [linen from
Osnabruck] and other German linens.' Price, Perry, 44. The correspondence of the
London merchant Joshua Johnson, too, proves the considerable volume of German
textiles in British Atlantic trade. Jacob M. Price, Joshua Johnson's Letterbook, 1771-1774.
Letters from a Merchant in London to His Partners in Maryland (= London Record Society
Publications, Volume XV for the Year 1979) (London 1979) XTV-XV, 31, 173.
61 Weber, Kaufmannsfamilien, 142-146 (Germans in Cadiz), 178, 188, 193-196 (Germans in
Bordeaux); on Bohemians see 133, 135.
62 Walther L. Bernecker, Die Handelskonquistadoren: europdische Interessen und mexikanischer
Stoat im 19. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart 1988). Walther Bernecker: '"Regiones alemanas" y
comercio ultramarino: el caso de Mexico (siglo XIX)' in: Michael Zeuske, Ulrike Schmie-
der eds, Regiones europeas y Latinoamerica (sighs XVIIIy XIX) (Frankfurt/M. - Madrid 1999)
73-100.
63 Brigida v. Mentz, 'Empresas y empresarios alemanes en Mexico, 1821-1945', Anuario de
estudios americanos (Sevilla) 46 (1998) 243-269, see 5-6. See also Brigida v. Mentz, Verena
Radkau, Beatriz Scharrer, Guillermo M. Turner, Los pioneros del imperialismo alemdn en
Mexico (Mexico 1982).
64 Bernecker, Handelskonquistadoren, 746.