Abstract
In the aftermath of American independence, what kind of commercial relationships could exist between the French colonial empire and its new ally in the Americas — the United States? This question breaks away from traditional diplomatic history, which tends to regard the US and France as the nation-states they would become in the nineteenth century. Indeed, analysis of the connections between these revolutionary countries has almost always been presented within national frameworks. The US, however, was a vulnerable state entangled with European rivalries in the Caribbean, the economic engine of the time, in which French stakes were particularly high. After 1763 the French Empire mattered mostly thanks to the economic power of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), whose sugar and coffee production led the world. But Saint-Domingue was no isolated colony. It was part and parcel of a truly French imperial project involving different areas, including the North American continent. In this perspective, what could be the interaction between the US, which was emerging as a postcolonial independent state, and a colonial empire centred around the Caribbean?1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
On the importance of Saint-Domingue at the end of the eighteenth century, see: Geggus, D.P. and Fiering, N., (eds): The world of the Haitian Revolution, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009.
On the diplomacy of the American Revolution in the classical historiography: Albert, P.J. and Hoffman, R. (eds): Peace and the peacemakers: the treaty of 1783, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986.
On the transformation of the French empire in the aftermath of the Seven Years’ War, see: Reinert, S. and Røge, P.: The political economy of empire in the early modern world, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
On Toussaint Louverture, see, for instance: James, C.L.R.: The black jacobins, New York: the Dial Press, 1938
Pluchon, P.: Toussaint Louverture: un révolu-tionnaire noir d’Ancien régime, Paris: Fayard, 1989.
For a reflection on Frenchness in a colonial context, see: Vidal, C., (ed.): Français? La nation en débat entre colonies et métropole (XVIe–XIXe siècle), Paris: EHESS éditions, 2014.
Baltimore was a recent city that started to grow in the 1750s only. Browne, G.L.: Baltimore in the nation, 1789–1861, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980
For a discussion on the relevance of the postcolonial to understand the history of the early US, see: Armitage, David, ‘From colonial history to postcolonial history: a turn too far?’, The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 2 (2007), pp. 251–4.
On non-territorial forms of polities, see: Mancke, Elizabeth, ‘Polity formation and Atlantic political narratives’, in Canny, N. and Morgan, P. D. (eds), Oxford handbook of the Atlantic World, c. 1450–1820, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 382–99.
On the diasporic nature of merchant networks in the Atlantic, see for instance, Hancock, David, ‘The trouble with networks: managing the Scots’ early-modern Madeira trade’, Business History Review, Vol. 79, No. 3 (2005), pp. 467–91
Kagan, R.L. and Morgan, P.D., (eds): Atlantic diasporas: Jews, Conversos, and crypto-Jews in the age of mercantilism, 1500–1800, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.
On the American Revolution from the point of view of major cities and merchants, see, in particular: Tyler, J.W.: Smugglers and patriots: Boston merchants and the advent of the American Revolution, Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1985;
Doerflinger, T.: A vigorous spirit of enterprise: merchants and economic development in revolutionary Philadelphia, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986
Matson, C.: Merchants and empire: trading in colonial New York, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
The diplomatic resolution of the American Revolution is viewed by Jack Rakove as a tale of three cities: Rakove, J.: Revolutionaries: a new history of the invention of America, Boston: Hougton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.
For an overview in recent scholarship: Carp, B.: Rebels rising: cities and the American Revolution, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
The quote is from Peterson, M.A., ‘The war in the cities’, in Kamensky, J., (ed.), The Oxford handbook of the American Revolution, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 194–215, p. 195.
On the commercial legislation and its discontents, Mims, S.L.: Colbert’s West India policy, London: H. Frowde, 1912
Frostin, C.: Les révoltes blanches à Saint-Domingue aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles: Haïti avant 1789, Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2008.
On smuggling between New England and French Antilles, Goebel, D.B.: ‘The “New England trade” and the French West Indies, 1763–1774: a study in trade policies’, The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 3 (1963), pp. 332–72
Truxes, T. M.: Defying empire: trading with the enemy in colonial New York, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.
On the debates about colonial trade at the end of the eighteenth century in France, Tarrade J.: Le commerce colonial de la France à la fin de l’Ancien Régime: l’évolution du régime de l’exclusif de 1763 à 1789, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1972
Cheney, P.: Revolutionary commerce: globalization and the French Monarchy, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010
Fraser Terjanian, A.: Commerce and its discontents in eighteenth-century French political thought, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
On the Americans’ intervention in the debate, Nussbaum, F.L.: ‘The French colonial arrêt of 1784’, The South Atlantic Quarterly, No. 27 (1928), pp. 62–78.
On Vergennes’ political economy, see Cheney, Paul: ‘A false dawn for Enlightenment cosmopolitanism? Franco-American trade during the American war of Independence’, The William and Mary Quarterly, 2006, Vol. 63, No. 3, pp. 463–88
On the division of the British empire, the exclusion of the US from the West Indies, and the debate that followed, Bell, Herbert C.: ‘British commercial policy in the West Indies, 1783–93’, The English Historical Review, Vol. 31, No. 123 (1916), pp. 429–41
O’Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson: An Empire divided: the American Revolution and the British Caribbean, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000
Sadosky, Leonard: ‘Reimagining the British Empire and America in an Age of Revolution: The Case of William Eden’, in Sadosky, L., O’Shaughnessy, A. J., and Onuf, P. (eds): Old World, New World: America and Europe in the age of Jefferson, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010, pp. 83–104.
Stephen Girard, who smuggled sugar, coffee, and flour between Philadelphia and Saint-Domingue, was rather confident that his activities would remain unchallenged. See McMaster, John Bach: The life and times of Stephen Girard, two vols., London: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1918, I, pp. 122–65
Albert J. Gares: ‘Stephen Girard’s West Indian Trade 1789–1812’, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 72, No. 4 (1942), pp. 311–42.
On smuggling in the Caribbean, Pérotin-Dumon, Anne: ‘Cabotage, contraband and corsairs: the port cities of Guadeloupe and their inhabitants (1650–1800)’, in Knight, F.W., and Liss, P. K. (eds), Atlantic port cities: economy, culture, and society in the Atlantic world, 1650–1850, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991, pp. 58–86
Klooster, Wim (ed.), Illicit riches: Dutch trade in the Caribbean, 1648–1795, Leiden: KITLV Press, 1998
Salvucci, Linda K: ‘Atlantic intersections: early American commerce and the rise of the Spanish West Indies (Cuba)’, The Business History Review, Vol. 79, No. 4 (2005), pp. 781–809
Klooster, W.: ‘Inter-imperial smuggling in the Americas, 1600–1800’, in Bailyn B., and Denault, P. L. (eds), Soundings in Atlantic history: latent structures and intellectual currents, 1500–1830, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009, pp. 141–80.
On French consuls in the United States, Mézin, A.: Les consuls de France au siècle des Lumières: 1715–1792, Paris: Ministère des affaires étrangères, 1997
Bégaud, S., Belissa, M., and Visser, J.: Aux origines d’une alliance improbable: le réseau consu-laire français aux États-Unis, 1776–1815, Paris: Direction des archives, Ministère des affaires étrangères (2005). ANOM, col., B 192, fos 59–61
Mathieu, J.: Le commerce entre la Nouvelle-France et les Antilles au XVIIIe siècle, Montréal: Fides, 1981, pp. 42–5
Torpey, J.: The invention of the passport: surveillance, citizenship and the state, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000
Denis, V.: Une histoire de l’identité: France, 1715–1815, Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2008.
See Taylor, R.J. and Lint, G. L. (eds): Papers of John Adams, June 1783–January 1784, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010, p. 49.
On the role of commercial regulation in the 1787 revolution, Edling, M.: A revolution in favor of government: origins of the U.S. constitution and the making of the American state, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
On the economic importance of Annapolis in Maryland, Papenfuse, E.C.: In pursuit of profit: the Annapolis merchants in the era of the American Revolution, 1763–1805, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975.
On the commercial impact of the war in the US, especially in Maryland and on the economic relationship to France, Sullivan, K.: Maryland and France, 1774–1789, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1936, pp. 65–77
Crowl, P.A., Maryland during and after the Revolution, a political and economic Study, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1943
Price, J.M.: France and the Chesapeake, a history of the French tobacco monopoly, 1674–1791, and of its relationship to the British and American tobacco trades, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1973
Gilbert, G.: Baltimore’s flour trade to the Caribbean, 1750–1815, New York: Garland, 1986
Hunter, B.: ‘Wheat, war, and the American economy during the Age of Revolution’, The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 62, No. 3 (2005), pp. 505–26.
On the economic depression that occurred during the Confederation period, Bjork, G. C.: Stagnation and growth in the American economy, 1784–1792, New York, London: Garland, 1985.
See: Koot C.: Empire at the periphery: British colonists, Anglo-Dutch trade, and the development of the British Atlantic, 1621–1713, New York: New York University Press, 2011.
For a theoretical approach of multi-centred and self-organized networks, Hancock, D.: ‘L’émergence d’une économie de réseau (1640–1815)’, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, Vol. 58, No. 3 (2003), pp. 649–72.
On the state of the job market in Saint-Domingue at the time, Covo, M.: ‘I, François B.: merchant, Protestant and refugee – a tale of failure in the Atlantic world’, French History, Vol. 25, No. 1 (2011), pp. 69–88.
Sources: Affiches américaines, 1788. On the Saint-Domingue trade in Philadelphia, see: Dun, J.A.: ‘“What avenues of commerce, will you, Americans, not explore!”: commercial Philadelphia’s vantage onto the early Haitian revolution’, The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 62, No. 3 (2005), pp. 473–504.
On trade regulations in the course of the war, Clauder, A.C.: American commerce as affected by the wars of the French revolution and Napoleon, 1793–1812, Clifton: A. M. Kelley, 1932.
On the expansion of the American carrying trade, Marzagalli, Silvia.: ‘Guerre et commerce: le rôle des neutres dans les relations entre l’espace antillais et l’Europe occidentale au tournant du XVIIIe siècle’, in Butel, P. and Lavallé, B. (eds): L’espace Caraïbe: théâtre et enjeu des luttes impériales, XVIe–XIXe siècle, Bordeaux: Maison des Pays ibériques, 1996, pp. 219–37
Marzagalli, Silvia: ‘Establishing transatlantic trade networks in time of war: Bordeaux and the United States, 1793–1815’, Business History Review, Vol. 79, No. 4 (2005), pp. 811–44.
Saint-Dominguan refugees and the political stakes of the battle in Cap-Français, White A.: Encountering revolution: Haiti and the making of the early republic, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2010
Popkin, J.D.: You are all free: the Haitian revolution and the abolition of slavery, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010
on the major traders in Saint-Domingue: Begouën Demeaux, M.: Mémorial d’une famille du Havre: 1737–1806, II: Stanislas Foäche, Paris: Larose, 1951.
Craig McDonald, Michelle: ‘The chance of the moment: coffee and the new West Indies commodities trade’, The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 62, No. 3 (2005), pp. 441–72.
DeConde, A.: Entangling alliance: politics & diplomacy under George Washington, Durham: Duke University Press, 1958
Ammon, H.: The Genet mission, New York: Norton, 1973
Elkins, S. and McKitrick, E.L.: The age of federalism, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, esp. pp. 381–96
Waldstreicher D.: In the midst of perpetual fetes: the making of American nationalism, 1776–1820, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997
Newman, S. P.: Parades and the politics of the street: festive culture in the early American republic, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999
Estes, T.: The Jay treaty debate, public opinion, and the evolution of early American political culture, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006
Young, Christopher J.: ‘Connecting the president and the people: Washington’s neutrality, Genet’s challenge, and Hamilton’s fight for public support’, Vol. 31, No. 3 Journal of the Early Republic (2011), pp. 435–66
Cotlar, S.: Tom Paine’s America: the rise and fall of transatlantic radicalism in the early republic, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011.
On Smith’s political leverage, see Cassell, F.: Merchant congressman in the young republic: Samuel Smith of Maryland, 1752–1839, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1971, pp. 64–72, 85–6.
These biographical elements are compiled from a hagiographic historiography that tends to downplay the French part of Barney’s life in order to glorify him as a national hero. Weller, M. I.: Commodore Joshua Barney: the hero of the battle of Bladensburg, Washington, 1911
Adams, W.F.: Commodore Joshua Barney: many interesting facts connected with the life of Commodore Joshua Barney, hero of the United States Navy, 1776–1812, Springfield: Priv. print, 1912
Delahaye Paine, R.: Joshua Barney, a forgotten hero of blue water, New York, London: The Century Co., 1924
Norton, L.A.: Joshua Barney: hero of the Revolution and 1812, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2000.
Racine K.: Francisco de Miranda: a transatlantic life in the age of revolution, Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 2003
On French Louisiana in an Atlantic context, Vidal, C. (ed.): Louisiana: crossroads of the Atlantic World, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.
On privateers from Baltimore in South America: Griffin, Charles C.: ‘Privateering from Baltimore during the Spanish American wars of independence’, Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. 35, No. 1 (1940), pp. 1–25
Head, David: ‘Baltimore seafarers, privateering, and the South American revolutions, 1816–1820’, Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. 105 (2008), pp. 269–93
Arlyck, Kevin: ‘Plaintiffs v. privateers: litigation and foreign affairs in the federal courts, 1816–1822’, Law and History Review, Vol. 30, No. 1 (2012), pp. 245–78
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2015 Manuel Covo
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Covo, M. (2015). Baltimore and the French Atlantic: Empires, Commerce, and Identity in a Revolutionary Age, 1783–1798. In: Leonard, A.B., Pretel, D. (eds) The Caribbean and the Atlantic World Economy. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137432728_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137432728_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-68294-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-43272-8
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)