Unraveling Transnational Merchant Networks, ca. 1685–1825

This book examines merchant networks from the unique perspective of moving backwards in time from a specific outcome—the founding of an American commission house in Brazil in the early 1800s—to uncover a century-and-a-half’s-worth of the transnational networking that led to its existence.

Individuals, their networks, and the times in which they lived constitute this study’s methodological framework. Navigating complex genealogical pathways along four generations of a Huguenot family, originally of Châtellerault, reveals a continuity of long-distance, private merchant networks based primarily, but not exclusively, in kinship connections among diasporic Huguenot, Walloon, Flemish, Dutch, and German Calvinists, and notably symbiotic interactions with Portuguese Jews. This saga features many other Atlantic world locations including London, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Lisbon, Hamburg, Bremen, New York, and Pernambuco. The Pernambuco firm constituted an early fixed platform for New York, New England, and Mid-Atlantic merchants to access Brazilian markets. Concurrently, other American houses at Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, and Buenos Aires collaboratively networked to promote common interests. Revealing these evolving connections adds to our relatively insufficient knowledge of the Western Hemisphere’s role in globalization processes.

This volume is for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars interested in merchant networks, globalization processes, and Atlantic world connectivities.