Between Empires: Brazilian Sugar in the Early Atlantic Economy, 1550-1630 (The Atlantic World)

Between Empires: Brazilian Sugar in the Early Atlantic Economy, 1550–1630

Atlantic World Europe, Africa and the Americas, 1500–1830 Edited by

Benjamin Schmidt University of Washington

and Wim Klooster Clark University

VOLUME 16

Between Empires: Brazilian Sugar in the Early Atlantic Economy, 1550–1630 By

Christopher Ebert

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2008

Cover illustration: ‘Ships Leaving the Port of Lisbon,’ from: Theodor de Bry, Americae tertia pars memorabilē provinciæ Brasiliæ historiam. Apud Ionnem Wechelum, 1592. Courtesy of the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ebert, Christopher. Between empires : Brazilian sugar in the early Atlantic economy, 1550–1630 / by Christopher Ebert. p. cm. — (Atlantic world ; 16) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-16768-1 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Sugar trade—Brazil— History—16th century. 2. Sugar trade—Brazil—History—17th century. 3. Sugar trade—Europe, Northern—History—16th century. 4. Sugar trade—Europe, Northern—History—17th century. I. Title. II. Series. HD9114.B6E24 2008 382’.4566410981—dc22 2008011348

ISSN 1570-0542 ISBN 978 90 04 16768 1 Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishers, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS List of Maps, Tables and Figures ................................................ Abbreviations. ............................................................................... Acknowledgements .......................................................................

vii ix xi

Chapter One Introduction ..............................................................................

1

Chapter Two Portuguese Trade with Northwestern Europe .........................

17

Chapter Three Sugar, Institutions and Politics .................................................

39

Chapter Four Merchants and Merchant Networks .......................................

61

Chapter Five The Cost of Shipping ..............................................................

85

Chapter Six Transactions and Risk Management ........................................ 109 Chapter Seven Illegal Trade .............................................................................. 131 Chapter Eight Supply, Demand, Prices and Profitability ................................ 151 Conclusion .................................................................................... 177 Appendix A The Transatlantic System: Ports and Routes in Brazil, Portugal and the Atlantic Islands ............................................. 181

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Appendix B Portugal and the Dutch Republic in Baltic Trade .................. 187 Appendix C Freight Charges ......................................................................... 191 Bibliography and Sources ............................................................. 195 Index ............................................................................................. 205

LIST OF MAPS, TABLES AND FIGURES Map 2.1

Principle ports in trade between Portugal, Portuguese Atlantic colonies and northwestern Europe, 1550–1630 ...........................................................................

18

Tables 2.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 6.1 6.2 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6

Freight contracts celebrated in Amsterdam involving the Baltic Trade ......................................................................... Ship types mentioned in the Lisbon and Porto notarial archives according to tonnage ............................................. Amsterdam freight contracts for the Baltic trade: Ships intending to visit Portugal in 1618 ...................................... Freight contracts from the Amsterdam notarial archives for trips to Brazil: tonnage and manpower ........................ Sales of ships revealed in Lisbon notarial archives, 1580–1630 ........................................................................... Ship prices in the Netherlands—Brazil or Portugal trade ..................................................................................... Some records of maritime insurance policies in the GAA, contracted for voyages to Brazil ............................... Records for loans on bottomry conditions in the GAA—trips to Brazil ........................................................... Brazilian production in arrobas ............................................ Lisbon sugar prices in 1624 and 1625 as quoted by a merchant, reis per arroba ....................................................... Price differences in Lisbon according to source: Prices of Madeira, São Tomé and Brazilian sugar as quoted by a Lisbon merchant house ....................................................... Wholesale sugar prices in Brazil: reis per arroba ................. Wholesale Brazilian sugar prices in Lisbon: reis per arroba ........................................................................ Wholesale sugar prices in Antwerp, groten per pound ........

37 91 92 94 100 101 123 127 152 154 155 157 159 161

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list of maps, tables and figures

8.7

Wholesale sugar prices in Amsterdam, groten per pound .................................................................................. 8.8 Wholesale sugar prices in Hamburg: groten per pound ..... 8.9 Price margins less freight per 54-arroba ton of white sugar shipped from Brazil to Lisbon in reis ....................... 8.10 Price margins less freight per 54-arroba ton of sugar shipped from Lisbon to Amsterdam in reis ........................ 8.11 Royal revenues: Habsburg Portugal, cruzados .....................

163 164 170 171 172

Appendices A.1 A.2 A.3 A.4 A.5 B.1 B.2 C.1 C.2

Lisbon and Porto notarial contracts mentioning Brazilian ports of call, 1580–1630 .................................................... Amsterdam freight contracts, including Baltic-Portuguese trade, 1614–1619 ................................... Voyages from Lisbon to Brazil in Lisbon notarial contracts: return ports ........................................................ Voyages from Porto to Brazil in Porto notarial contracts: return ports ......................................................................... Voyages from Portugal to Brazil in Lisbon and Porto notarial contracts: Atlantic Islands ..................................... Portuguese ports of call anticipated in Amsterdam freight contracts involving Baltic trade, 1594–1600 .......... Volume of shipping through the Øresund—Ships arriving directly from Portugal by national origin .......................... Freight charges: Brazil to Portugal, reis per ton ................. Freight charges for sugar, Portugal to the Dutch Republic ..............................................................................

181 182 184 184 185 187 190 191 193

Figures 2.1 5.1 8.1 8.2

Planned voyages from Holland to Portugal ....................... 37 Lisbon and Porto notarial contracts mentioning Brazilian ports of call ......................................................... 89 Sugar prices in Brazil and Europe ..................................... 165 Freight charges, Brazil to Portugal ..................................... 167

ABBREVIATIONS AHU ARA GAA IANTT IC IL NA RGP RSG SG WIC

Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisbon Nationaal Archief, The Hague (formerly: Algemeen Rijksarchief) Gemeentearchief Amsterdam Instituto dos Arquivos Nacionais, Torre do Tombo, Lisbon Inquisição de Coimbra Inquisição de Lisboa Notarieel Archief Rijksgeschiedkundige Publicatiën Resolutiën der Staten-Generaal Staten-Generaal Dutch West India Company (West Indische Compagnie)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the spring of 1997, I met with Herbert Klein for the first time over coffee. This was not in his favorite haunt, the Hungarian Pastry Shop in Morningside Heights in Manhattan, but at the Cafe de la Presse in San Francisco. I was considering graduate work at Columbia and expressed my interest in exploring early Portuguese colonialism in Brazil. At the time we were wondering how I might make my German skills useful in such a study, and Klein brightly suggested: “Why don’t you learn Dutch?” That moment was the genesis of this project. From PhD thesis to manuscript was not always a straightforward path, and there were many people who offered help, advice and useful criticism. Foremost among them was Professor Klein, who was unstinting in his time, advice and encouragement. While I owe a debt of gratitude to many other professors at Columbia, several in particular were instrumental in offering suggestions for this work, especially Martha Howell, Pablo Piccato, and the late Wim Smit. I have also received valuable encouragement and advice from Professors Alan Dye, Johannes Postma and Wim Klooster. I greatly appreciated and—hopefully—took to heart the excellent advice of the two anonymous readers of the manuscript. In order to aid my research in Portuguese archives I received generous support from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. While there I also benefited enormously from conversations and advice from Professor Leonor Costa of the Universidade Technica de Lisboa whose work has had a profound influence on mine. Professor Pedro Cardim was also a welcoming presence during my time in Portugal and helped me to negotiate the archives there. I am also most grateful for the support and warm friendship of my dear friends in Portugal: Keith Mason, Marcelo Albuquerque, Jean Wallace, Carol Pearce and Lothar Bräutigam. In my several stays in the Netherlands, I have benefited from conversations with Professors Pieter Emmer and Ernst van den Boogaart, whose good advice helped guide my project at an early stage. Professor Victor Enthoven was also a great help and very free with his time and advice. To Dr. Raoul Hammers I owe many thanks for taking me into his flat in Amsterdam on two occasions. Also to my friends Stephen Keizer, Stephen Rodda and Jeffrey Sanders I owe many thanks for helping to make my time in Amsterdam so enjoyable.

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Thanks to Professors Alan Stewart and Pedro Guibovich Perez for enjoyable and useful conversations on sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury business and society. Christina Gehlsen and Dr. Peter König have been true mentors to me, and most generously hosted me in Berlin during part of the period that I was writing. Thanks to Chris and Wendy Wark for logistical support during trips to archives. I offer special thanks to my partner Jason Nu for his excellent proofreading skills and companionship. I dedicate this work to my parents, Dick and Shirlee Ebert.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION If, in 1612, a merchant in the northern Portuguese port of Porto freighted a ship for trade with Brazil, the journey would likely have proceeded thus. A typical ship traveling from Porto to Recife in Pernambuco would have been about 70 tons. While the shape and construction of ships varied during this period, this would have meant to the captain and freighters in practical terms that the ship could hold 140 casks—pipas—of wine, a common cargo on a trip from northern Portugal to Brazil. The ship would travel just under two months with a crew of about fifteen. Once in Recife, the captain would meet with a local correspondent of the Porto-based merchant, exchanging letters and information about prices and markets. This correspondent would sell the wine and purchase sugar with the proceeds, probably without the exchange of any silver specie. Mutual debts would be set off in the account books, and new ones indicated with letters of credit and exchange.1 Within two months, the ship’s crew would have unloaded the wine and replaced it with a cargo of sugar, already waiting in warehouses on the wharf in Recife. In this case, each ton of cargo space—capable of holding two pipas of wine—now carried four crates of sugar, each marked to show its provenance and grade, and weighed-in at about 13.5 arrobas (198 kilograms). With a maximum cargo of 280 crates of sugar, though probably less, the ship would set sail for Portugal. If all went well—for a gauntlet of Barbary pirates infested the waters near Portugal—the ship would arrive in about three months in the mouth of the Douro. Now it would unload its cargo into the warehouses of Porto’s Customs House, or Alfândega. Here officials checked the bills of lading and weighed the cargo once again. Afterwards the freighters of the ship would pay appropriate tolls and taxes and claim their cargo.

1 This is a hypothetical account, but documentation supporting my claims for how trade was conducted will appear in detail in following chapters.

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From here sugar entered upon a new transaction, one that would take it to another place in Europe. In 1612 there was a good chance this would be Amsterdam. Probably sugar did not need to stay long in the warehouse of a merchant from Porto, because a large number of ships—mostly of Dutch origin—sailed every year from that Portuguese town to northern destinations. One of these ships would have arrived with instructions for the Porto merchant from his correspondent in Amsterdam, asking to buy sugar. In this case, the hypothetical ship that carried our sugar was larger, with two decks, a broad bottom and a shallow draft. The ship had probably arrived in Porto with a cargo of grain purchased in Danzig, and its owners measured its holding space not in pipas-based tons, but in lasts, a unit of measure—based on grain shipments—common in northern European shipping. The ship measured 100 lasts, and the freighters reckoned that they could load eight to ten crates of sugar per last. Even so, the Dutch crew of 25 only loaded 250 crates of sugar, and this shared cargo space with salt from Aveiro. Loading time was two weeks and then the ship set sail for Amsterdam, arriving there a month later. Here a similar process to that seen at Porto was played out. Local officials taxed the transaction, while wholesale merchants claimed the cargo and made adjustments in their account books. At this point sugar was destined for one of Amsterdam’s sugar refineries. By the time Brazil become an important producer of sugar, Portugal’s role as a supplier of sugar to elite households in Europe was well established. A once medieval, domestic sugar industry had followed ocean-going caravels during Portugal’s great age of overseas expansion and discovery. By the end of the sixteenth century, the newly discovered Atlantic islands—especially São Tomé and Madeira—were producing sugar at a level that rendered European domestic production inconsequential. This expansion of cultivation, processing and shipping to areas distant from Europe required more capital than Portuguese resources could provide. Merchant capital from Germany, Italy and the Low Countries filled the gap. In its earliest phases, sugar was a pan-European undertaking. An initially unpromising colony, Portuguese Brazil achieved economic importance in the middle of the sixteenth century when a combination of capital, labor and political sponsorship created the right conditions for an extension of cane cultivation to certain sections of the vast

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Brazilian coastline. Cane grew very well in Brazil, and it was also a propitious time for expansion. Sugar remained a luxury item, affordable to only a few in Europe, but the sixteenth century saw the growth of towns as well as the elite, urban populations that formed the market for sugar. In the latter half of the sixteenth century, Brazilian production increased to a level that dwarfed, in turn, the output of the Atlantic islands. Around 1612, Brazil may have been producing 672,000 arrobas (9,871,680 kilograms) per year. By that time in Europe, sugar was nearly synonymous with Brazilian sugar. Brazilian sugar was, in fact, not one, but three chief products. The process of refining on the plantation created sugar in a range of purity that, typically, was described as branco, or white; moscovado, essentially a light-brown sugar; and panela, a dark brown sugar. The first two types were known as machos, and they formed the greatest amount of exports. Panela left Brazil in much smaller quantities, and usually commanded about half the price of white sugar. Other products of refining on the plantation—including molasses—made their way to Europe, but not in appreciable quantities. Needless to say, moving all of this sugar—as well as other Brazilian products—to markets in Europe called for significant resources in shipping. By 1611, this trade occupied at least 150 ships per year, and maybe as many as 200 or more, depending on the size of the harvest and the cargo space available at any given time in the merchant marine. These were ships just for carrying sugar from Brazil to Portugal. Many more ships moved sugar from there to other European markets. The spurs to employment, naval construction, provisioning and finance were not small. The requirements of moving Brazilian sugar placed it at the center of the first age of trans-Atlantic shipping. For all its importance, the Brazilian sugar trade in its earliest phases remains poorly understood. Part of the reason for this is simply that there is little information in European archives to support conclusions with great certainty. Merchants’ account books for this period remain extremely rare. For Portugal, there are virtually no detailed series of data emanating from crown sources about imports and exports that have survived for this period. When such information for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries does survive, it presents difficulties of interpretation. Regarding sugar, contemporary descriptive sources are notoriously imprecise about types and provenance, and they are sometimes prone to exaggeration about quantities produced and shipped.

4

chapter one

The first scholarly works to treat Brazilian sugar did so through an imperial framework.2 More recently, several Portuguese scholars have investigated specific regional bases of the Brazilian sugar trade, looking at local merchant communities and their associated maritime sectors. These efforts have rested on the exploitation of previously unused Portuguese archival sources, especially notarial documents.3 One of the most impressive achievements in this area has come from Leonor Freire Costa, who has contributed a meticulously researched and expansive look at the shipping sector in the Portuguese-Brazil trade until 1663.4 Costa was the first to make extensive use of notarial records in Lisbon and Porto to examine the economy of the transport sector in the sugar trade. Another section of her long work examines the establishment of the monopoly Companhia do Comércio do Brasil in 1663. Costa’s study has had a significant influence on this work, and I have made ample use of her wide-ranging research, including data series provided in her appendices. However, to one degree or another, previous work dealing with the Brazilian sugar trade has continued to conceptualize it within either a Dutch or Portuguese imperial framework. This perspective misses a great deal of the story, for Brazilian sugar was traded in a wider Atlantic system, and sugar shipped from Brazil to Portugal was not 2 Forty years ago, Vitorino Magalhães Godinho laid out the structure of the entire Portuguese overseas empire in its earliest phases in Os descobrimentos e a economia mundial, 2 vols. (Lisbon: Editora Arcádia, 1965). This, however, focused mainly on Portuguese expansion in the Indian Ocean region. A few decades later, Frédéric Mauro’s seminal work, Le Portugal, Le Brésil et l’Atlantique au XVIIe siècle (1570–1670), filled in important gaps in scholarly understanding of Portugal’s westward expansion (Paris: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1983). I have used a recent Portuguese translation throughout this work: Frédéric Mauro, Portugal, o Brasil e o Atlântico, 1570–1670, 2 vols. (Lisbon: Editorial Estampa, 1997). Mauro provided a macroeconomic study of the entire Portuguese Atlantic trading region, including a generalized sketch of the Brazilian sugar trade. Both works were based on broad research in Portuguese archives and remain important overviews—in the Annales tradition—of the Portuguese empire. 3 One such work was contributed by Manuel Antonio Fernandes Moreira, who has documented the activity of merchants in Viana involved in the Brazilian sugar trade in Os mercadores de Viana e o comércio do açúcar brasileiro no século XVII (Viana do Castelo: Câmara Munícipal, 1990). In a recent doctoral dissertation, Amélia Polónia has described the responses of a northern Portuguese town, Vila do Conde, to new opportunities provided by the opening of trade with Brazil. Amélia Polónia, “Vila do Conde. Um porto nortenho na expansão ultramarina quinhentista” (PhD Diss, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade do Porto, 1999). 4 Leonor Freire Costa, O transporte no Atlântico e a Companhia Geral do Comércio do Brasil (1580 –1663), 2 vols. (Lisbon: Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 2002).

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destined to stay there long. A history of the trade in Brazilian sugar, then, must incorporate the movement of sugar from Portugal to—primarily—northern European markets. Here the historiography is thin, and no study has dealt with this trade in any detail.5 In particular, no scholarly work has appeared that examines Brazilian sugar exports to the Dutch Republic—its largest market in the first half of the sixteenth century. The scholars who have addressed it at all have mostly offered unsubstantiated claims and generalizations. For example, there has been a widespread repetition of the claim that Dutch ships were the main carriers of Brazilian sugar to Portugal starting around 1580 and lasting until the establishment of the Dutch West India Company (WIC) in 1621.6 Others have claimed that Portuguese merchants handled the

5 Amélia Polónia, “Descobrimentos e a expansão ultramarina portuguesa,” Anais de História de Além-Mar 1 (2000): 9–32. The author laments the fact that little Portuguese historiography of overseas expansion employs a larger European context. Nevertheless, two German historians who studied transnational merchant communities laid important groundwork for this study. Hermann Kellenbenz wrote about the migrations of merchant communities from the Iberian Peninsula to German towns, especially Hamburg. Hermann Kellenbenz, Unternehmerkrafte im Hamburger Portugal- und Spanienhandel 1590 –1625 (Hamburg: Verlag der Hamburgischen Bücherei, 1954) and Hermann Kellenbenz, Sephardim an der unteren Elbe (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1958). Also, Hans Pohl contributed an excellent study of the Portuguese merchant community in Antwerp in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Die Portugiesen in Antwerpen (1567–1648): zur Geschichte einer Minderheit (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1977). Both Kellenbenz and Pohl took prosopographic approaches. While they did not focus primarily on the Brazil trade, they showed the activities of merchants who sometimes traded there. Each also contributed an article that discussed the role of Portuguese merchants residing in northwestern Europe in importing Brazilian sugar: Hans Pohl, “Die Zuckereinfuhr nach Antwerpen durch Portugiesische Kaufleute während des 80jährigen Krieges,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas 4 (1967): 348–73; Hermann Kellenbenz, “Der Brasilienhandel der Hamburger ‘Portugiesen’ zu Ende des 16. und in der ersten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts,” Portugiesische Forschungen der Görresgesellschaft, Aussätze zur Portugiesischen Kulturgeschichte 1 (1960): 316–14. Another major contribution was Eddy Stols’ magisterial, Spaanse Brabanders, which examined merchants from the southern Low Countries in the Iberian Peninsula in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This work followed extensive research in archives in Antwerp, Spain and Portugal, and demonstrated that merchants from the Low Countries lived, worked and traded in significant numbers in Spain and Portugal. Eddy Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders of de handelsbetrekkingen der Zuidelijke Nederlanden met de Iberische Wereld (Brussels: Paleis der Academiën, 1971). See also: Eddy Stols, Os mercadores flamengos em Portugal e no Brasil antes das conquistas holandesas (São Paulo: Separata dos Anais de História, 1973). Although he did not study the Brazil trade per se, Stols has shown a keen appreciation of the international dimensions of the early development of Brazil. As he has demonstrated through several works, these were reinforced through merchant immigration and large webs of correspondents, credit and finance. 6 Engel Sluiter seems to have been the first to make this claim in 1942, without providing much evidence. See: Engel Sluiter, “Dutch Maritime Power and the Colonial

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‘primary routes’ of sugar imports, i.e. between Brazil and the Portuguese metropolis, while the redistribution—or ‘secondary’—routes were in the hands of foreigners.7 These views implicitly or explicitly credit mercantilist-type state policies as a major force shaping international trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These arguments have considerable merit but overemphasize, respectively, the supposed ethnic identity of sugar traders and the role of the state in directing the trade. In regard to the former, a common assumption has been to assign responsibility for the movement of trade goods—especially sugar—from Portugal to the Dutch republic to the Sephardim, i.e. a merchant ‘nation’ of Jewish ancestry.8 Some evidence supports these arguments, but it Status Quo, 1585–1641,” Pacific Historical Review 11 (1942): 29–41. Since then historians have repeated it frequently and uncritically, including Charles Boxer, Celso Furtado and Pieter Emmer, to name just a few. Celso Furtado, The Economic Growth of Brazil (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1984), 8–9. This work appeared originally in Portuguese in 1959. Furtado sometimes confused the Dutch with Flemish. This conflating of Low Countries merchants was also common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, during which nearly all Germanic-speaking northerners might fall under the Portuguese rubric of “Flamengos” or “Framengos.” This mistake has even continued in contemporary discourse—at least in the popular media—as Evaldo Cabral de Mello has recently lamented: Evaldo Cabral de Mello, “Uma questião de nuança,” Folha de São Paulo, 1–23–2000. Furtado’s source for the early history of the Brazilian sugar trade was mostly: Noel Deerr, The History of Sugar, 2 vols. (London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1949). Deerr’s work, while wide ranging is not based on detailed archival work and—in regard to the early trade in Brazilian sugar—consists mostly of unsubstantiated generalizations. See also: P.C. Emmer, The Dutch in the Atlantic Economy, 1580–1880: Trade, Slavery and Emancipation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998). 7 In Portuguese overseas trade in general, Costa has seen structural inhibitions to foreign involvement. According to this view there was an investment and information-obtaining structure that discriminated against non-Portuguese investors. Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:116–22. Costa posits this but does not offer a convincing explanation about how it might work. The example she offers pertains to the Africa trade, considered a Portuguese monopoly. But crown correspondence dating from the middle of the sixteenth century attests to the fact that other European interlopers had already penetrated trade routes between Portugal and Africa. To offer but a few examples: IANTT, Corpo Cronológico, Parte I, maço 103, no. 57; maço 104, no. 72; maço 107, no. 4. 8 This approach can be seen in Jonathan Israel, who has claimed that Dutch involvement in the Brazil trade was chiefly a result of Portuguese New Christian immigration to the Dutch Republic, which fostered growing trade links between Brazil, Portugal and Amsterdam after 1609. Jonathan Irvine Israel, Empires and Entrepôts: the Dutch, the Spanish monarchy, and the Jews, 1585–1713 (London: Hambledon Press, 1990), 200–10; Jonathan Irvine Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585–1740 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989), 1–11. Similar arguments are made in the following works: Arnold Wiznitzer, Jews in Colonial Brazil (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960); Anita Novinsky, Cristãos novos na Bahia (São Paulo: Editôra Perspectiva, 1972); Daniel M. Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans, The Portuguese Jews of Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam (London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2000); P.C. Emmer, “The First Global War:

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requires careful interpretation. No doubt Portuguese merchants seeking refuge from the Portuguese Inquisition in the Dutch Republic helped to foster deepening trade networks between the two countries. Nevertheless, viewing the international sugar trade as a Sephardic preserve is a position lacking in nuance. For one, New Christian or Sephardic identities in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are very difficult to uncover with any precision.9 But even more importantly, Both Old and New Christians engaged in the sugar trade, both as rivals and partners.10 For sure, kinship and a shared religious identity helped to cement earlymodern business partnerships, but scholars of Dutch-Portuguese trade may have gone too far in privileging so-called ‘Sephardic’ networks in explaining the sugar trade.11 This issue is important since it speaks to the conduct of early modern trade in general, especially in the Atlantic sphere. The research offered here challenges the assumption that any ethnic ‘nation’ was the exclusive conduit for early Atlantic trade. Rather, I see merchants in general as mobile, often fluid in their identities, and prone to inter-imperial cooperation. This is a challenge to the most common perspective in the scholarly literature. To give one example, some scholars have continued to lump Atlantic trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries under

The Dutch Versus Iberia in Asia, Africa and the New World, 1590–1609,” e-journal of Portuguese History 1, no. 1 (2003), 8–9. 9 There is a large literature on the subject of identity by now, but in reference to the mutability of the identities of Portuguese New Christians, I strongly agree with: H.P. Salomon, Portrait of a New Christian Fernão Álvares Melo (1569–1632) (Paris: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1982). 10 As David Grant Smith has shown, there is little evidence that New Christian business practices were different from those of Old Christians, or that these networks were particularly exclusive or separated. David Grant Smith, “The Mercantile Class of Portugal and Brazil in the Seventeenth Century: A Socio-Economic Study of the Merchant of Lisbon and Bahia, 1620–1690” (PhD Diss, University of Texas, 1975); David Grant Smith, “Old Christian Merchants and the Foundation of the Brazil Company, 1649,” Hispanic American Historical Review 54, no. 2 (1974): 233–59. 11 I believe that these distortions have arisen where scholars have focused on Portuguese Sephardic communities in Amsterdam. Seeing that merchants in these communities were active sugar traders, they may have inadvertently assumed that they were the exclusive traders of this commodity. Some of the theoretical issues surrounding identity and business practices have been defined by: Avner Greif, “On the Interrelations and Economic Implications of Economic, Social, Political, and Normative Factors: Reflections from Two Late Medieval Societies,” in The Frontiers of the New Institutional Economics, ed. John N. Drobak and John V.C. Nye (San Diego and London: Academic Press, 1997), 57–94. This discussion continues in Chapter 4.

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the rubric of ‘mercantilism.’12 As Braudel has argued, definitions of mercantilism are usually regarded as imprecise and fluid.13 There is no doubt that some early modern states began to try to organize overseas trade. The accumulation of these efforts may loosely be described as mercantilism, but the term disguises an extremely ad hoc process with a vast range of motivations and actual policies both within and between early modern states. Seventeenth-century merchants themselves often expressed flexible and ambivalent attitudes towards mercantilist policies depending on how they affected their own interests at any given time.14 This complexity should indicate caution, but in practice scholars have sometimes continued to use mercantilism as too rigid and analytical category. This means that they have sometimes tended to interpret the early Atlantic economy primarily in the light of both legal frameworks regulating trade and imperial policy.15 One impetus to the imperial perspective is the abundance of evidence promoting just such a view. Those who would employ mercantilism to

12 This was posited some years ago during the Twelfth International Economic History Congress, which characterized the international trading economy as evolving through four eras of mercantilism (1415–1846), liberalism (1846–1914), neo-mercantilism (1914–48) and decolonization (1948–74). Patrick K. O’Brien and Leandro Prados de la Escosura, “The Costs and Benefits for Europeans from their Empires Overseas,” Revista de Historia Económica (Madrid) 16, no. 1 (1998): 29. 13 Fernand Braudel, The Wheels of Commerce, Civilization and Capitalism 15th–18th Century, vol. 2 (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), 542. 14 An excellent exposition of the ad hoc assembly of mercantilist policies and their selective reception among colonial merchants can be seen in Cathy Matson, Merchants & Empire: Trading in Colonial New York (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 44–49. 15 A good example of the state approach is in: Jorge M. Pedreira, “‘To Have and to Have Not’ The Economic Consequences of Empire: Portugal (1415–1822),” Revista de Historia Económica (Madrid) 16, no. 1 (1998): 93–122. There have been at least two important impetuses to the continued use of the mercantilist/imperial point of view. One has to do with disciplinary structures. Alison Games has recently pointed out that “fundamental organizing schemes of graduate programs in history” have led to the division of the Atlantic into linguistic and imperial units that are “clumsy and counterproductive.” Alison Games, “Atlantic History: Definitions, Challenges, and Opportunities,” American Historical Review 111, no. 3 (2006): 750. Few scholars have been able to overcome the linguistic and logistical obstacles that arise from an inquiry framed in trans-national or inter-imperial terms. The result has been the persistence of imperial perspectives, or, in the case of Atlantic history, the categories of the “Dutch Atlantic,” the “Portuguese Atlantic,” the “British Atlantic,” etc. Some recent authors have effectively revised and de-centered traditional imperial history, notably Henry Kamen who has shown that the supposed “Spanish” empire was more of a massive multi-ethnic collaboration. Henry Kamen, Empire: how Spain became a world power, 1492–1763 (New York: Harper Collins, 2003).

introduction

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describe Atlantic trade—at least in the seventeenth century—have a point. European governments in the seventeenth century wrestled with the desire to subordinate the activities of their merchants to the interests of a national economy. As Braudel also notes about mercantilism, “with all its faults, this label does conveniently cover a whole series of acts and attitudes, projects and ideas and experiences which mark the first stand of the modern state against the concrete problems facing it.”16 The seventeenth century—for economic historians—was veritably launched by the founding of the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, hereafter VOC), an unprecedented partnership between merchants and the nascent Dutch Republic. With greater relevance for the topic of sugar was the establishment of the WIC in 1621. This was nothing if not an attempt to organize the sugar trade under mercantilist principles. Other countries—including France, England and Portugal—followed suit later in the century, linking the sugar trade explicitly with the fortunes of the state. Furthermore, much of the contemporary early-modern discussion of trade and economies—seen in tracts, treatises and petitions—is of a proto-nationalist or proto-mercantilist nature. Writers generally assumed that Atlantic trade was a zero-sum game and encouraged competition between kingdoms or states. Positing a ‘state’ interest in trade served their arguments that states should become more involved in directing and controlling local merchants. Mercantilist-type works are abundant, especially starting in the seventeenth century. One need only look as far as the works of Willem Usselincx, an early advocate for the creation of a Dutch West India Company, or the Spanish memorialists who influenced Spanish economic policy under the Count Duke of Olivares.17 But these sources are prescriptive rather than descriptive. Seventeenth century discussion about the normative role of the state in directing merchant activity should not be confused with reality. This is not to say that states did not act, and from about the middle of the seventeenth century they began to do so more aggressively. Various royal administrators and advisors such as Olivares in Spain, Colbert in France, and Braudel, Wheels of Commerce, 542. Henk den Heijer, “The Dutch West India Company,” in Riches from Atlantic Commerce: Dutch Transatlantic Trade and Shipping, 1585–1817, ed. Johannes Postma and Victor Enthoven (Leiden: Brill, 2003); for an analysis of Spanish economic thinking under Olivares see: Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, A Nation upon the Ocean Sea: Portugal’s Atlantic Diaspora and the Crisis of the Spanish Empire, 1492–1640 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), especially chapter 5. 16 17

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Vieira in Portugal tried to convert mercantilist discourse into actual policy, sometimes with concrete results. In Britain, 1651 saw the birth of the Navigation Acts. However, the truth is that through the early seventeenth century and beyond, early modern states had limited roles in directing merchant activity. Recent scholarship has emphasized the porosity of supposedly closed imperial systems in the Atlantic World, although it has tended to focus on the period after 1650.18 Even when early modern states did try to channel and control merchant energies through mercantilist policy, their efforts were often ineffective. This may have been especially so in the Atlantic sphere, where geography militated against effective control. The European routes to Asia were long, logistically complicated and often dependent upon strategic bottlenecks, such as the Straits of Malacca, whose control could spell success or failure in trade. By contrast, the Atlantic was wide open and easily traversed. Settlement and economic activity were widely dispersed and very difficult to control effectively. As David Hancock has pointed out, “transatlantic trade, both legal and illegal, among the British, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Dutch across imperial boundaries was commonplace.”19 When the logic of markets transcended that of imperial rules, widespread evasion was the result. The present work mines this new vein in Atlantic scholarship through its inter-imperial approach. But it also goes further and suggests that an interpretation that is increasingly common for the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries may apply to the earliest phases of Atlantic trade. Given the overwhelming importance of Brazilian sugar in Atlantic trade before 1630, it suggests that the Atlantic was an integrated, 18 An abundance of recent monographs and edited collections point in this direction. See for example the essays in Peter A. Coclanis, The Atlantic Economy during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Organization, Operation, Practice, and Personnel (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005). 19 David Hancock has found just such a decentralized, inter-imperial trade facilitated by a motley group of international traders in the Madeiran wine trade: “L’émergence d’une Économie De Réseau (1640–1815): Le vin de Madère,” Annales, histoire, sciences sociales 58 (2003): 649–72. See also: Claudia Schnurmann, “Atlantic Trade and Regional Identities: The Creation of Supranational Atlantic Systems in the 17th Century,” in Atlantic History, History of the Atlantic System 1580–1830, ed. Horst Pietschmann (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002). Wim Klooster’s study of Dutch and Spanish illegal trade interactions in the Caribbean and on the Wild Coast offers good examples of this process. Wim Klooster, Illicit Riches: Dutch Trade in the Caribbean, 1648–1795 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1998). For contraband trade and interloping in the British North Atlantic, see Matson, Merchants & Empire, especially 203–14.

introduction

11

trans-imperial community already in the sixteenth century and well into the seventeenth. The integrated mercantile community that had developed to move bulk commodities between northwestern Europe and the Iberian Peninsula by the fifteenth century simply extended its network to the Portuguese Atlantic islands and then to Brazil. This fact offers an important corrective to the reigning interpretation of the seventeenth century as a century of ‘mercantilism.’ Mercantilism was not born with the Brazilian sugar trade, but rather was a response to it—whether or not effective—dating mostly to the middle part of the seventeenth century. What follows in this work is a descriptive and quantitative economic analysis of the commercial and financial operations of the Brazilian sugar trade in all of its wholesale phases. On the most fundamental level, I have tried to demonstrate how Brazilian sugar functioned in international markets during the first eighty years of its history. In order to do this, I have gathered evidence about international prices, identified shipping and insurance costs, and interpreted price changes over time in a historical context. In my final chapter I explain the sugar trade in terms of supply and demand. As this work shows, the trade in Brazilian sugar remained a highly inter-imperial affair, characterized by the mobility of merchants and their capital as well as a high degree of cooperation through the correspondent system. Powerful evidence for this cooperation and mobility is the large number of merchants from northwestern Europe in Portugal, and Portuguese merchants in northwestern Europe. This allowed merchants to overcome institutional and political obstacles to trade as they arose. Consequently sugar from Brazil continued to reach markets in northwestern Europe via Portugal in the period to 1630. The trade was not completely free, in that there were restrictions in the transport sector. But it was not a monopoly, and it was not mercantilist, to the extent that mercantilism defines the successful subordination of trade to a national economy or interest. Examining the wholesale market for sugar led inevitably to an examination of the group of individuals who bought and sold it. I have drawn here on an excellent and growing literature of merchant communities in early modern Europe. Still, I have not written a prosopography. For one thing, sugar trading was not a particularly specialized activity, but usually just one aspect of a merchant’s portfolio. Also, it was a very widespread activity, and the merchants who engaged in it were geographically dispersed and very heterogeneous culturally. Rather

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than identify the group characteristics of sugar traders, I have tried to examine their networks and to look at the financial and business tools at their disposal. My choice of periodization came easily. 1550 marks, more or less, the beginning of sustained and successful saccharine production in Brazil. In fact, the industry grew by fits and starts and its origins often remain murky. Brazilian sugar appears to have gained increasing notice in international markets after about 1570, and its ascendancy from that time on is indisputable. Growing markets for sugar lured entrepreneurs, and a system of Atlantic shipping evolved in the latter half of the sixteenth century that largely persisted—with some modifications—for decades. The establishment of the WIC in 1621 was a planned and well-financed assault on this system. Nevertheless, in spite of the short-lived occupation of Bahia by the WIC in 1624–1625, the real watershed was the successful WIC occupation of the sugar-producing regions in the Brazilian northeast starting in 1630. The basic markets for sugar did not change as a result of this event, but shipping patterns were severely disrupted as intermittent war engulfed Brazil and Atlantic shipping lanes. In spite of this, free Atlantic trade was not eliminated. Within a decade of 1630, the attempt of the WIC to control the Brazilian sugar trade through a monopoly company had ended. Ultimately, the whole Dutch project in Brazil proved a failure, but, restored to Portuguese control, Brazilian sugar was no longer the dominant trade item in the Atlantic. Brazilian sugar during an age of Caribbean competition is another story. There were a number of markets for Brazilian sugar, including France and Italy. This work does not examine them all. Inevitably there were constraints on my time and resources. However, I believe that my focus on the Dutch Republic, and Amsterdam in particular, is warranted. Amsterdam probably absorbed half or more of Brazilian sugar imports after 1609. At the same time, Dutch investment in the Brazilian sugar trade was significant, and much of the sugar exported elsewhere in Europe—including Italy—moved in Dutch ships, at least before 1621. Furthermore, I have included in my analysis sugar exports to the towns of Antwerp and Hamburg, since they were the next largest importers during this time, and they were also closely linked to Amsterdam through merchant and shipping networks. These three towns probably absorbed at least 75% of Brazilian sugar imports during the period under scrutiny.

introduction

13

Following the documentary trail left by a single commodity allowed me to question some common scholarly biases. The trade in Brazilian sugar was subject to rules within the Portuguese empire that ensured its taxation for the benefit of the crown. However, its markets were not in Portugal. This situation prompted me to ask to what extent the trade in Brazilian sugar—perhaps the most important trans-Atlantic trade—might invite either transnational competition or cooperation before 1630. I discovered that neither the perspective of a national economy nor mercantilism explained how this trade developed and flourished in its first eighty years. The driving force behind this trade was its profitability, which waxed and waned, but never disappeared, either on primary or secondary routes of distribution.20 The promise of profits kept the trade going, in spite of obstacles. The state taxed the sugar trade, and to ensure revenues Portugal imposed restrictions on the transportation of Brazilian sugar, especially after 1605. However taxation in Portugal seems never to have been onerous, reaching a level that would depress the trade or drive it deeply into contraband. In the Dutch Republic, taxes on sugar were even lighter.21 Furthermore, Portuguese ports were entrepôts for a whole range of bulk and luxury commodities that were shipped with sugar to northwestern Europe. A more serious problem was that the sugar trade developed during a time of intermittent military conflict between suppliers—Portugal—and one of the chief markets for Europe—The Dutch Republic. This clearly affected the shipping sector. At various times vessels from the Dutch Republic were seized in Portuguese harbors, and—as noted above—all foreign shipping was eventually barred from Brazil. Surprisingly, this did not greatly disturb the investment structure of the trade. That this was so had much to do with the persistence of the merchants that traded sugar and the resilience and flexibility of their networks. Following is a brief outline of my chapters.

20 Braudel, Wheels of Commerce, 190–4. Braudel makes this point for the sugar trade in general throughout its history. 21 Frederic C. Lane, “The Role of Governments in Economic Growth in Early Modern Times,” Journal of Economic History 35, no. 1 (1975): 8–17. Costs imposed by the government did not reach the level of “tribute” discussed by Lane, which would have put a brake on the development of the trade. Chapter Eight will show that aftertax profits in the sugar trade remained high.

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In the second chapter I look at the structural dimensions of the trade in terms of the trade routes and networks that linked Portugal and northwestern Europe. I show that these were well established before the appearance of Brazilian sugar, and that, when this commodity first appeared, it logically moved along these same routes. Also, around the time sugar appeared there was a significant shift from the role of Antwerp as a near-monopoly trading partner with Portugal to a more decentralized system of northwestern European markets, albeit one which favored Amsterdam. In the third chapter I examine the institutional and political context for the Brazil trade. This looks at how sugar was taxed at various stages of export and the institutions that controlled trade. I consider taxes on sugar as transaction costs and attempt to quantify them. Additionally, I look at the complex and protean political context spawned by the union of the Iberian crowns in 1580 and the consequent involvement of Portugal in the wars between Spain and the Dutch Republic. This chapter takes the view that institutional constraints and military policies coming from the Dutch Republic and the Habsburg crown did affect the sugar trade but did not amount to a mercantilist system. The fourth chapter looks specifically at the merchant networks that invested in Brazilian sugar. Portugal and various northwestern European cities had already exchanged groups of merchants as early as the thirteenth century, but—partly as a result of the possibilities available from Brazilian sugar—these international merchant networks intensified in the latter half of the sixteenth century. During this period, the family firm remained a basic unit of merchant organization, and successful families had members in a variety of trade centers, both in Europe and the Portuguese colonies. Nevertheless, merchant cooperation was also strong through the correspondent system, and showed a pronounced inter-imperial dimension. The fifth chapter identifies and quantifies transaction costs in the trade in Brazilian sugar in the shipping sector. The first theme treated here is the port system and travel and turnover times in ports. Next I look at the operating cost of shipping, because this plus the length of trading journeys formed the bulk of overall expenses. Finally I consider how the costs of ships affected the trade, since these costs were reflected in the costs of transportation in general. This chapter does not consider the profitability of ship-owning per se, but I have posited that the cost of shipping on Brazilian routes was affected at times by supply from the Dutch Republic, probably leading to lower overall shipping costs.

introduction

15

This demonstrates another inter-imperial dimension of the trade in one of its closely related sectors. In the sixth chapter I look at financial transactions and risk management. Here I explore how a marked expansion in the supply of credit, new financial tools and the greatly expanded negotiability of paper money helped to fuel trans-Atlantic investment. These very elements also allowed distant investors to participate in the trade, contributing, again, to its inter-imperial character. Here I also explore commercial risk-management practices such as insurance and bottomry contracts. These I view both as financial instruments as well as transaction costs to the sugar trade. They helped to broaden participation in a trade that was characterized by both high risk and good profitability. Insurance markets also drew in the capital of northwestern European capitalists who were not directly involved in the wholesale movement of Brazilian sugar. The seventh chapter examines the illegal economy of Brazilian sugar, i.e. that of contraband, privateering and piracy. These activities had contradictory results. Contraband trade generally resulted when Spain enforced embargoes against trade with the Dutch Republic. In this case, a well-established trade showed continuity even though it was declared illegal. Often this led to the modification of trade routes as shippers sought to avoid detection by authorities. Contraband trade by its nature is difficult to assess, but when embargoes were lifted, it appears that merchants preferred to work through the legally prescribed system, since this was less risky and offered them sufficient profit. Piracy and privateering, on the other hand, were attempts to control the trade through violence. Various groups practiced them at different times, but there was no period in the Brazilian trade when shipping was not under threat. This raised the cost of shipping and sometimes caused sharp shifts in the price of sugar on European markets. Nevertheless, ‘illegal’ trading contributed to commodity flow and operated as a clandestine part of the inter-imperial merchant network. Chapters 2 through 7 provide an important context for understanding how supply and demand worked in the sugar trade, since the political and institutional contexts of the trade had important effects for the trade over time. Subsequently, in Chapter 8, I provide a microeconomic look at Brazilian sugar. Here I offer a comparison of sugar prices at various points along the export routes of sugar. My conclusions, while tenuous, hint at price integration at various links along the commodity chain. This is consonant with the larger story of inter-imperial merchant integration.

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Next I examine price margins in the trade and speculate on likely profit levels, considering the transaction costs of trading. Finally, the chapter examines the effects of sugar income on state revenues and assesses its economic significance comparatively in parts of Europe. Sugar, I show, was consistently profitable before 1630, and taxes on it made a major contribution to the revenues of the Portuguese crown. This study draws upon a wide range of sources. In Lisbon I have looked at the records kept by the Concelho da Fazenda, the crown body responsible for regulating trade in Brazil before 1630. I have also examined trial transcripts of the Holy Office in order to glean information about the investment activities and family networks of New Christian merchants ensnared in the Inquisition. In Amsterdam I have explored the extensive notarial archives in the Gemeentearchief. As do most researchers, I have relied on the card index to navigate through these archives, and have sometimes used just the summaries on the card indices themselves.22 I have also read in various sections of the Nationaal Archief in The Hague.23 I have also made extensive use of printed primary sources, many originating from notarial collections. I have also read relevant printed primary works from other sources, including merchants’ correspondence and descriptions of trade or trading voyages. The excellent series published over decades by the Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatiën has been particularly helpful. Needless to say, this work rests on the scholarship of others, many whom are mentioned above. Their works have often had a strong influence, even when I have not always agreed with their conclusions.

22 The sheer number of records in this archive is quite daunting, and so I have followed a research methodology also used by recent researchers. See, Arjan Poelwijk, ‘In dienste vant suyckerbacken.’ De Amsterdamse suikernijverheid en haar ondernemers, 1580–1630 (Hilversum: Verloren, 2003). 23 Before June 2002 it was called the Algemeen Rijksarchief.

CHAPTER TWO

PORTUGUESE TRADE WITH NORTHWESTERN EUROPE This chapter describes Portugal’s foreign trade before and as Brazilian sugar was introduced. One of the factors influencing the direction of the sugar trade was the existence of previously established trade routes. I begin by looking at the trade relationship between Portugal and the southern Low Countries, especially Antwerp, Portugal’s most important trading partner until the middle part of the sixteenth century. As the function of Antwerp as the redistribution entrepôt par excellence diminished, several northwestern European states might have benefited, and, in fact, the sugar trade did become somewhat decentralized. But some places were more promising for sugar imports than others. For example, an old trading relationship existed between Portugal and England, but England did not attract large numbers of sugar imports. Subsequently I explore trade relations between Portugal and three parts of Germany: northern Germany, Bavaria—especially the rich towns of Nuremberg and Augsburg—and finally Cologne. These proved to be significant secondary markets for Brazilian sugar, but sometimes only temporarily. The last trade route I discuss was between Portugal and the northern Netherlands, especially the provinces of Holland and Zeeland. In the second decade of the seventeenth century, this route became the most important for Brazilian sugar. Political events were partly responsible for the decentralization of markets for Portuguese products in northwestern Europe. Antwerp suffered repeated financial crises from the 1550s onwards, relating to the economic problems of the Habsburg Empire. Subsequently, the religious and political revolt in the Habsburg Netherlands against the crown compounded Antwerp’s problems. Emigration from the metropole began from mid-century. The closing of the Schelde by the Seabeggars of Zeeland hastened the city’s decline.1 Finally, the siege of the city by the Duke of Parma in 1585 was a nadir, after which merchants 1 The Schelde was ‘closed’ in 1585 and not ‘opened’ until 1795: Jan de Vries and A.M. van der Woude, The First Modern Economy: Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500 –1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 371.

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Danzig London

Hamburg Amsterdam Antwerp

Viana Porto Lisbon Setubal

Azores

Madeira The Canary Islands

At la n t ic O ce a n

São Tomé

Recife (Pernambuco) Salvador (Bahia)

Espirito Santo Rio de Janeiro

Map 2.1

Principle ports in trade between Portugal, Portuguese Atlantic colonies and northwestern Europe, 1550–1630

portuguese trade with northwestern europe

19

left the city in droves, to set up shop in the northern Netherlands, Germany or England.2 But political events only partly explain the course of trade, which had an important structural component. An essential background is Portugal’s overall role in the European trade networks before Brazilian sugar entered European markets. The development of a colonial empire starting in the fifteenth century was a major departure for the Iberian kingdom, but given its small population and under-developed agriculture, it never promised to be a major market for the trade items that flowed from its African, Asian and American trade. Fortunately for Portugal, it had developed—by the time of its spectacular overseas initiative after 1415—strong and durable trading relationships with the most economically advanced parts of Europe: northern Italy and northwestern Europe, particularly Flanders. Lisbon enjoyed a spectacular rise as an entrepôt for overseas luxuries in the sixteenth century, but the redistribution routes taking them to the north—where demand was strongest—were already well traveled.3 By the time Brazilian sugar appeared, these routes had expanded in response to the chronic shortage of grain in Portugal, especially acute after the middle of the sixteenth century. Dearth of grain was a common situation for urban populations in the Mediterranean and the Iberian Peninsula, since the weather could be capricious, and large cities were not always adequately supplied by their hinterlands. The grain trade was a major spur to inter-Mediterranean shipping in general, and Portugal sometimes took supplies from Mediterranean sources. By the end of the sixteenth century a structural shift in the grain trade was taking place: Baltic supplies increasingly replaced Mediterranean ones, both for Portuguese, Spanish and Italian cities.4 In Portugal, the trade link was strengthened since it supplied salt that was indispensable in northern fisheries. The trade in grain and salt—or ‘bulk trades’—were easily distinguished from more lucrative types of trade in luxury commodities known as the ‘rich trades,’ which were distinguished by a very high ratio of Merchandise continued to reach Antwerp through French harbors such as Calais. See: Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 294–5. 2 de Vries and van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, 362–6. 3 For a general treatment see: Bailey W. Diffie and George D. Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415–1580 (Minneapolis: Univerisity of Minnesota Press, 1977). 4 Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 1:586–7.

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value to volume. By the time Brazilian sugar became a viable commodity, the most valuable long distance routes for luxury commodities were between Europe and Asia. This trade involved mainly Asian spices, and the Portuguese had easily outstripped the Venetians in imports by the early part of the sixteenth century through their discovery of a direct sea route to the Indian Ocean. Although valuable, this trade operated in a relatively small number of—admittedly large—ships. In the thirtyyear period between 1590 and 1619, Portugal sent only 168 ships to India, averaging little more than five per year.5 Grain and salt carried far less value per volume than luxury goods such as silk or pepper, but required far larger resources of shipping. In Portugal, after around 1550, hundreds of ships from France, Germany and the Low Countries were involved annually in bulk trades.6 Thus the trade route between Portugal and the North and Baltic Seas became one of Europe’s most important by the end of the sixteenth century.7 The value of the cargo of a typical vessel on this route would have been miniscule compared to the cargo of a Portuguese Indiaman, but the cumulative value of this trade was not insignificant. Portugal’s Asian commodities in the sixteenth century have been valued at between 7,000 and 7,500 tons of silver. In the same period the Mediterranean grain trade was probably worth 9,000 tons of silver.8 Towards the end of the sixteenth century, the Dutch grain trade eclipsed the Mediterranean grain trade, with 700 Dutch ships devoted to the Baltic grain trade alone in operation by 1565.9 This means that the total annual value of the bulk cargoes traded to and from Portugal at the end of the sixteenth century was probably higher than the value of Portugal’s Asian imports. This fact establishes an important context for the sugar trade. With so much bulk traffic on pre-existing routes, there was a large cargo capacity available to transport sugar from Portugal to northern destinations. Consequently, no single northern European market monopolized the wholesale trade in sugar. The grain trade was not centralized, although much of it was organized out of a few large ports, including Amsterdam.

5 M.N. Pearson, The Portuguese in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 62. 6 See tables and figures at the end of this chapter. 7 Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World, 586–7. 8 Pearson, The Portuguese in India, 42. 9 de Vries and van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, 358.

portuguese trade with northwestern europe

21

Likewise the wholesale market for sugar, and refining industries that served the retail trade, flourished in a variety of towns.10 There was a hierarchy of scale among northern wholesale sugar importers, but in every case the towns that eventually imported Brazilian sugar had a pre-existing trade relationship with Portugal. So while the flow of sugar from Portugal to northwestern Europe was unimpeded, the relative strength of different towns in attracting sugar depended on specific economic and political factors. One of Portugal’s oldest and most significant trading relationships was with Flanders, dating from the end of the twelfth century. There are mentions of Portuguese merchants in Bruges as early as 1212, and by 1308 they congregated on their own street in that town. The Duke of Burgundy granted them privileges in 1386, and a Portuguese trade house existed in Bruges by 1387, combining the functions of a warehouse, hostel and meeting place. Portuguese privileges were extended in 1411, 1421 and 1438, and in the latter year the Portuguese merchant community received some rights of self-government embodied in the election of consuls.11 These merchants organized themselves into a voluntary association known as a bolsa, similar to other merchant groups active in Flanders.12 This type of association, adapted from Italian models, served to provide cohesion to the merchant community and could be used to police and enforce contracts.13 Still, the bolsa was not autarchic. Portuguese merchants interacted extensively with their

10 Lisbon was not without its own refineries, probably serving a domestic market only. Fr. Nicolao de Oliveira, Livro das grandezas de Lisboa (Lisbon: 1804), 181, 183. Oliveira noted several in Lisbon in 1620. 11 Pohl, Die Portugiesen in Antwerpen, 23–4. 12 The most recent treatment is: Ivana Elbl, “Nation, Bolsa, and Factory: Three Institutions of Late-Medieval Portuguese Trade with Flanders,” The International History Review 14, no. 1 (1992): 1–22. See also: A.H. de Oliveira Marques, “Notas para a história da feitoria portuguesa na Flandres no século XV,” in Ensaios da história medieval, ed. A.H. de Oliveira Marques (Lisbon: Sá da Costa, 1965) 217–67; and Virgínia Rau, “Feitores e feitorias portuguesas do século XVI,” Brotéria 81, no. 5 (1965): 458–78. The bolsa or factory organization continued to characterize the Portuguese merchant community in Flanders—especially Antwerp—through the seventeenth century. Although it had social consequences for the merchants involved and offered opportunities for integration of new arrivals, it did not primarily affect how trade was prosecuted, i.e. it did not supercede the company, usually family based. 13 Elbl, “Nation, Bolsa, and Factory,” 11. See also: Frédéric Mauro, “Merchant communities, 1350–1750,” in The Rise of Merchant Empires. Long-distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350 –1750, ed. James D. Tracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 262–3.

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Flemish counterparts in Bruges, and the latter served as partners, hostellers, and brokers in Portuguese transactions.14 The Portuguese crown sent occasional emissaries to Bruges, and from 1456 the position of royal factor became permanent, although the crown factor acted in a somewhat separate sphere from the bolsa and its consuls. The crown’s representative characteristically sold produce from royal estates in Flanders in exchange for luxury commodities such as clothing, jewelry and jousting equipment. But in the course of the fifteenth century, he increasingly sold and a bought as a consequence of crown involvement in overseas trade, facilitating the king’s interests in Africa. As a result the receipts of the royal factory rose dramatically, climbing from 1,200 Flemish pounds in 1456–65 to 8,200 in 1491–5. Paradoxically, just as this trade began to show enormous growth, the royal factory moved to Antwerp in 1498–99.15 This shift in the center of economic activity was generalized. Unstable political conditions after 1477 accelerated a movement of the merchants of the Portuguese bolsa from Bruges to Antwerp. By 1477, Portuguese merchants were already present at the Pentecost market in Antwerp, and, by the last two decades of the century, they moved there in increasing numbers, although they never abandoned Bruges entirely. By 1511, the preference for Antwerp was established and confirmed by the city in a new set of privileges, patterned on those enjoyed previously in Bruges. These were renewed throughout the century.16 The refocusing of Portuguese merchant activities from Bruges to Antwerp did not owe entirely to the conflicts at the end of the fifteenth century between Maximilian of Austria and the Flemish towns. The city on the Schelde represented a new pattern in trade in northwestern Europe, one in which Portugal figured significantly. The seasonal fairs in northern Brabant increasingly drew central European merchants from Bohemia and from German towns such as Nuremberg. With them emerged a capital market in Antwerp, offering exchange services and finance from the large German banking families. These two financial services had a particular attraction for Portuguese merchants. Portugal’s emerging Atlantic empire required new types of trade and finance, and its needs were moving far beyond the modest trade in luxury goods for

14 15 16

Elbl, “Nation, Bolsa, and Factory,” 16–17. Ibid., 8–9. Pohl, Die Portugiesen in Antwerpen, 26–27.

portuguese trade with northwestern europe

23

the crown and grandees that had been satisfied in Bruges. Portugal’s lucrative Guinea trade depended on iron and copper manufactures, none of which were produced in Portugal, but which could be supplied by the German merchants in Antwerp. Additionally, Antwerp allowed Portugal to exploit new and large sources of finance, which were necessary to promote trade and settlement along the African coast and in the Atlantic archipelagos, not to mention the crown’s daring ambitions for direct trade with Asia. This symbiosis was cemented as Portugal’s colonial products found an ideal market in Antwerp.17 One such product was sugar, which was rapidly increasing in output just at the time that Portuguese trade activity assumed its Antwerp orientation. Although Madeiran sugar had been sold on the market in Bruges, production in São Tomé began to accelerate around 1500, and Antwerp proved to be the ideal entrepôt for the second phase of European redistribution of sugar from both São Tomé and Madeira. Sugar became a veritable Portuguese monopoly as competition from Mediterranean plantations withered. And yet, although Portuguese kings from the beginning envisioned sugar as a commodity whose trade should benefit the crown, the exploiting of new lands for sugar was an activity that drew merchant capital, and even direct participation, from a wide range of European sources.18 Unsurprisingly, Flemish merchants to a significant extent became partners with the Portuguese in this enterprise, and capital from the great German banking families also played its part. Consequently, the Antwerp sugar market was the largest for much of the sixteenth century, and remained a significant market into the seventeenth century for sugar produced in the Portuguese colonies. Northern Europe’s newly dominant entrepôt embraced new forms of doing business along global trade routes. The institutional participation of Portugal in this system, however, reflected—at least outwardly—old norms. As in Bruges, the Portuguese bolsa in Antwerp received privileges, exemptions and limited rights of self-government. The Portuguese merchants would elect from among themselves a consul and officers, 17 Herman van der Wee, “Structural changes in European long-distance trade, and particularly in the re-export trade from south to north, 1350–1750,” in The Rise of Merchant Empires. Long-distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350–1750, ed. James D. Tracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 21–8; Niels Steensgaard, “The growth and composition of the long-distance trade of England and the Dutch Republic before 1750,” in The Political Economy of Merchant Empires, ed. James D. Tracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 103. 18 Pohl, “Die Zuckereinfuhr nach Antwerpen,” 349–50.

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and a house was designated in 1511 for use of the Portuguese resident merchants as well as new arrivals. Here the community met and resolved disputes.19 The institutions and privileges of the Antwerp bolsa persisted into the seventeenth century, even as Antwerp’s Portuguese ‘nation’ became more fluid, attracting more and more transient members. The royal factor also survived, although his role increasingly resembled that of a representative of a powerful trading house. Between 1495 and 1521 the royal factors in Antwerp arranged the import of 150,293 arrobas and 6,068 crates of sugar from São Tomé. Royal factors—once busy in Bruges with exporting luxury items to the Portuguese court—were now sugar traders, sending this valuable commodity from Portugal’s new Atlantic empire to northern Europe’s redistribution hub.20 Toll data from the Portuguese factory in Antwerp gives an idea of the scale of trade in the mid-sixteenth century. Between July, 1535 and May, 1551 at least 342 Portuguese vessels delivered goods from Portugal or Portuguese possessions to Antwerp. The vast majority of these ships carried at least some sugar in their holds, virtually all of it from Madeira and São Tomé.21 By 1567 Portuguese sugar moving to Antwerp may have been worth around 250,000 guilders (36,363,636 reis). This was a respectable amount, but still small compared to the value of other trade items belonging to the ‘rich trades.’ In the same year, spices from Portuguese Asia may have been worth 2,000,000 guilders (290,909,090 reis).22 Other valuable commodities moving back and forth were fabrics from Low Countries textile centers, and pearls, coral and gems from the Portuguese and Spanish colonies. Antwerp’s merchants also imported brazilwood, indigo and other dyestuffs, and wool and leather from Spain and Portugal. The list concludes with metal manufactures from Germany, Scandinavia and the Netherlands, and even books and paintings.23 A different category of commodities assumed increasing volume and importance as the sixteenth century progressed. This was the bulk trade

Pohl, Die Portugiesen in Antwerpen, 59. Pohl, “Die Zuckereinfuhr nach Antwerpen,” 348–9. 21 The bolsa taxed this trade, which was mainly directed through Portuguese ports. Officials kept records of the ships and listed consignees of sugar shipments. IANTT, Feitoria de Flandres, “Livros de Avarias.” See also, Virgínia Rau, Estudos sobre a história do sal Português (Lisbon: Editorial Presença, 1984), 208–21. 22 Wilfred Brulez, “The Balance of Trade in the Netherlands in the Middle of the Sixteenth Century,” Acta Historiae Neerlandica 4 (1970): 20–48. 23 This trade is described in detail in Pohl, Die Portugiesen in Antwerpen, 177–211. 19 20

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in northern European grain, and Iberian agricultural products such as wine, fruit and oil. Although Antwerp was never an important grain exporter in its own right, its merchants were deeply involved in transactions to bring grain from North Sea and Baltic ports to the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa and Italy. Carrying grain was a decentralized business, involving fleets from many different shipping centers and supply from a variety of ports from London to Danzig (Appendix B). Especially in the latter half of the sixteenth century—with populations rising—the demand for grain in Iberian harbors grew enormously. Antwerp’s merchants competed to satisfy this market because of their excellent webs of relatives and correspondents in diverse ports. As trading expanded and evolved, so did the groups that facilitated it. The Portuguese merchant community in Antwerp remained relatively small in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, perhaps numbering around 20 merchants at any given time. However, it grew apace throughout the century. It reached its sixteenth century zenith in the years around 1570–2, perhaps numbering around 80–95 households. Later in the decade, as Antwerp suffered from confessional turbulence and Spanish reprisals, perhaps about 50% of the city’s Portuguese merchants emigrated, mostly to Cologne. By the end of the century, however, the Portuguese community had recovered, showing Antwerp’s continued resilience and importance as a trading partner to Portugal.24 The Portuguese nation in Antwerp had found a counterpart with the Flemish nation in Lisbon. Trade connections blossomed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries between Portugal and textile towns, especially Bruges, but a Flemish presence in Portugal was not apparent until the fifteenth century. After 1550, dozens of merchant families relocated to Portugal and this movement increased in the sixteenth century.25 Among the migrants were musicians, artists and artisans, although merchants did not likely comprise more than a few dozen families during the sixteenth century. Problems in Antwerp accelerated immigration to Iberian cities such as Lisbon and Seville.26 In the seventeenth century merchants from Antwerp resident in Portugal, such as Pedro Clarisse, busied themselves with, among other things, importing sugar from Brazil.

24 25 26

Ibid., 64–7. Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 49–51. Ibid., 54–6.

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Antwerp’s émigré merchants were not the only northern Europeans living in Portugal. Portugal’s trade with the northern German Hansa cities was on a sure footing by the fourteenth century, and by the fifteenth century Hansa merchants trading in Portugal received privileges from the crown.27 Large merchants from the bigger Hansa towns dominated the Baltic-Portugal trade, and a German factory appeared in Lisbon by the fifteenth century.28 By the sixteenth century there were regular visits of ships from Danzig, Riga and Reval at Lisbon to collect salt, wine, fruit and cork. Of these, salt was prized the most. Merchants from the eastern Baltic sought salt from Portugal (and France) because it was cheaper and of better quality than that produced in Lüneburg, and this allowed them to break the hegemony of Lüneburg and Lübeck. In return, the Hansa cities provided Iberian and Mediterranean regions with a number of basic bulk commodities lacking in their own economies. These included, most typically, Scandinavian timber and grain from estates east of the Elbe. But the Hansa relationships were especially strong with Portugal, owing to a propitious political climate and mutually advantageous trade products.29 Already in the fifteenth century the regularity of this trade led to the development of a Hanseatic ship type, the ‘hulk’ (Portuguese: urca), to carry commodities back and forth. This was generally a very large ship by the standards of the time, carrying three masts. Some hulks boasted up to 1,000 tons of cargo space, although most were smaller. Numbers of these ships built to carry grain would bring sugar from Brazil during the last two decades of the sixteenth century.30 Initially the most common sailing route was directly between Danzig and Lisbon, but by the middle decades of the sixteenth century, other European intermediaries had penetrated the trade between Portugal and Hansa cities. This showed in a shift in the ports used and the predominance of shipping. Ships still often sailed directly between Baltic ports and Iberian harbors, but by the middle of the sixteenth century several North Sea harbors had emerged as trans-shipment centers handling grain from northwestern Europe and the Baltic. The new stop27 Jürgen Pohle, Deutschland und die überseeische Expansion Portugals im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2000), 18; Kellenbenz, Unternehmerkrafte, 15. 28 Pohle, Deutschland und die überseeische Expansion Portugals, 21–2. 29 Ibid., 18–19. 30 José Antonio Gonsalves de Mello, “Os livros de saídas das urcas do porto do Recife, 1595–1605,” Revista do Instituto Arqueológico Histórico e Geográfico de Pernambuco 58 (1993): 21–143.

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ping points were Hamburg and Amsterdam. By the early seventeenth century Hamburg captains rarely sailed directly between Danzig and the Iberian Peninsula, as evidenced in the registers of the Øresund toll. Rather, trade items were trans-shipped in Hamburg.31 Smaller ports and satellites such as Emden, near Hamburg, took part in this business as well.32 At the same time, the Dutch gained an important competitive advantage in overall Baltic trade, and their ships increasingly supplanted those of the Hansa cities. While the Baltic-Portuguese trade remained vigorous, it grew to be dominated by a few cities. The growing role of these cities as redistribution centers in the sixteenth century extended to Brazilian sugar, which was entering European markets just as they moved towards preeminence in trade. Although in the second half of the sixteenth century Amsterdam began to dominate the Baltic bulk carrying trade, the interdependence of a variety of North Sea and Baltic ports remained strong. This is perhaps best illustrated by the response of German and Hansa merchant communities to Spanish trade embargoes during the Eighty Year War. The best efforts of Spanish authorities to bar the Dutch Republic from the bulk carrying trade between the Baltic and Iberian ports could not stop the cooperation of Dutch and German port towns. Although the Hansa cities stood to benefit from the elimination of Dutch competition in these routes, they were loath to give up their neutrality and side explicitly with the Spanish, especially since they were heavily integrated into the Dutch trading economy, sharing many correspondents and relatives in Dutch cities such as Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Middleburg.33 To a large extent, weather conditioned the sailing seasons for ships from Hamburg, as with those from the northern Netherlands. The westbound journey, or Westfahrt, might begin as soon as seasonable weather and winds permitted, and those ships that left northern German harbors with the thaw of the Elbe could still return in the late spring and make another voyage to an Iberian destination. A direct journey through the English Channel lasted around forty days and was always favored except for those times when the threat of English or Dutch privateering prompted merchants to direct ship’s captains to take a much longer detour around Scotland and Ireland. Autumn was another typical

31 32 33

Kellenbenz, Unternehmerkrafte, 49. Ibid., 50. Ibid.

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time for departure as German ships loaded lasts of grain for delivery in southern ports.34 German ships leaving in the fall would winter in the Iberian Peninsula. Significantly, however, the ships could be employed during this time on trips to the Atlantic Islands, the Mediterranean or even to Brazil, where sailing was far less restricted by weather. 35 These trips sometimes involved transport of sugar, which thus moved to European markets on ships designated for the ordinary trade in bulk commodities (see Chapter 4). Germany’s Baltic and North Sea ports dominated trade relationships with Portugal, but other German cities—such as Nuremberg and Augsburg—also played a part. Portugal’s need for German copper manufactures in its West Africa trade led to links with the German cities that marketed these items. This demand prompted the appearance of merchants from Nuremberg in Portugal at the end of the fifteenth century.36 Once arrived, these merchants from Oberdeutschland diversified their economic activities. The great German banking families played a significant role in facilitating Portuguese expansion, and they had an early presence in Portugal. Along with Genoese and Flemish bankers, these German houses helped to provide the capital that underwrote the creation of the Iberian overseas empires, and they were specifically involved in the early expansion of sugar cultivation in various Atlantic islands. In the early sixteenth century, Lucas Rem was present in Lisbon as the Welser factor, along with other merchants from Augsburg. Rem marketed grain, German metals, cloth and manufactures in Portugal. His interests extended to Portugal’s new overseas colonies and during these years he sailed to Madeira. Additionally he sent ships to the Azores, Cabo Verde, and North Africa. By 1509 there was a Welser factory in Madeira, but it did not exist for long. Increasingly, the German bankers turned toward investment in the Carreira da India as a source of profit. Rem, along with a consortium of Fugger and Venetian banks, financed a voyage of three ships with Portuguese crews to India in

34 Last=two tons. The volumetric standard in the Baltic trade was based on grain transport, unlike the southern ton, which was a measurement of casks of wine. See Frederic C. Lane, “Tonnages, Medieval and Modern,” Economic History Review 17, no. 2 (1964): 213–33. 35 Kellenbenz, Unternehmerkrafte, 34–5. 36 Pohle, Deutschland und die überseeische Expansion Portugals, 44.

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1505–6 at a cost of 65,400 cruzados. They made a handsome profit on the returns.37 The Fugger family bank also extended its reach to Portugal, and Fugger money helped to fund colonial ventures in the Atlantic sphere as well. Like the Welsers, Fuggers were present in Lisbon in the first decade of the sixteenth century and obtained privileges from the crown. Their orientation was also towards the pepper trade, and copper was the return commodity par excellence, while Antwerp served as the intermediary port. As Antwerp continued to grow in importance, the Bavarians no longer perceived the necessity of direct representation in Portugal. After the first few decades of the century they had largely vanished from Lisbon.38 However, the Fuggers remained important creditors to the Portuguese crown from their new base in Seville, where they continued to invest in Atlantic trade. The Fugger inventory of 1553 lists Portuguese debts amounting to 216,778 ducats. Among the borrowers was the royal treasurer, at 137,000 ducats. Other debtors were officials from the monopoly Casa da Mina who owed nearly 49,000 ducats, about twice as much as the crown’s gold income from São Jorge da Mina that year. Clearly German trade formed a vital link in Portugal’s overseas trade, fostered especially by the upper German banking families.39 The final important German town to trade with Portugal was Cologne. Before 1578, merchants from Cologne played a fairly small role in Portuguese trade and few of them traveled to Portugal or to Portuguese colonies.40 Nevertheless, merchants from Cologne indirectly entered Portuguese trade through Hansa intermediaries. As with Low

37 Ibid., 99–102. Probably in the first half of the sixteenth century the total value of exports from Portugal to the East—mostly specie—did not exceed 80,000 cruzados in most years: Godinho, Os descobrimentos, 1:270. This shows the extent to which the Portuguese crown was dependent on foreign capital to finance its earliest trading ventures in the Indian Ocean. For Rem’s activities in Madeira, see IANTT, Corpo Cronológico, Parte I, maço 7, no. 85; Parte II, maço 14, no. 119; maço 16, no. 105, maço 16, no. 150, maço 17, no. 138, maço 18, no. 128, maço 29, no. 189, maço 29, no. 194. 38 Pohle, Deutschland und die überseeische Expansion Portugals, 104–7, 255–6. 39 Hermann Kellenbenz, ed., Die Fugger in Spanien und Portugal bis 1560: Dokumente, vol. 34, Schriften der Philosophischen Fakultäten der Universität Augsburg (Munich: Verlag Ernst Vögel, 1990), 490–4. It is probably impossible to reconstruct the total debts of the Portuguese crown at this time. In the case of the Casa da Mina, Fugger loans represented a substantial investment. In 1553 the Lisbon Mint (Casa da Moeda) reported gold receipts from Mina at 25,679 cruzados, although in 1555 it reported 98,406 cruzados received from Mina: Godinho, Os descobrimentos, 1:192. 1 ducat = 1 cruzado. 40 Gertrud Gramulla, Handelsbeziehungen Kölner Kaufleute zwischen 1500 und 1650 (Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 1972), 311–20.

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Countries merchants, they became intermediaries in the bulk trades. Cologne’s Hermann Quackart, for example, traded Setubal salt and Baltic grain in the 1570s.41 If, however, its direct trade with Portugal was small, from early times Cologne dominated redistribution routes of Portuguese colonial products moving into southeastern Germany. Merchants from Cologne bought pepper, other spices, and especially sugar in the Antwerp staple. Sugar import is documented as early as 1488 and reached considerable levels in the first few decades of the sixteenth century. Documents from Antwerp and Cologne refer to 145 sugar shipments from Antwerp between 1502 and 1513, of which 113 were directed towards Cologne. This sugar, mainly from plantations in São Tomé and Madeira, did not reach Cologne in raw form but rather bore names such as “broitzuker” and “zuckercandis.” That is to say, it was the product of Antwerp refineries.42 Cologne merchants, in turn, employed Rhine and Mosel shippers to send this sugar towards Frankfurt, Nuremberg and other upper-German markets. Not surprisingly, Cologne merchants married into the Flemish merchant houses that handled Portuguese sugar, and they maintained agents in Portugal. Thus Cologne was an important way station in the flow of Portuguese colonial sugar into north-central Europe.43 Cologne’s commercial importance made it a frequent destination for political and religious refugees from Antwerp. From the 1560s, as confessional and political strife racked Antwerp, many merchants sought refuge in Cologne. These included the very top level of Antwerp’s Portuguese merchants such as the Ximenes and D’Evora families, who arrived in 1578. All at once, Cologne could benefit from a group of merchants with outstanding European and overseas trade networks. Nevertheless, this benefit was to prove short lived. Many of these merchants did not intend to stay in Cologne, and few of them remained by 1600.44 As calm returned to Antwerp, Portuguese merchants did likewise. Others moved on to Hamburg and the northern Netherlands,

Ibid., 337. Ibid., 319–20. 43 John Everaert, “Les barons flamands du sucre à Madère,” in Flandre et Portugal, ed. John Everaert and Eddy Stols (Antwerp: Fonds Mercator, 1991), 108–9. 44 Gramulla, Handelsbeziehungen Kölner Kaufleute, 342–5. 41 42

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where the economy was booming.45 While Cologne was to maintain its status as an important center of trade, linking Portuguese colonial products with central European manufactures, it could not compete with Amsterdam for primacy as an entrepôt. Subsequently, Cologne’s Iberian trade continued to be mediated mainly through Antwerp and Hamburg. Across the Channel, England had an early trading relationship with Portugal dating from the thirteenth century, cemented by strong political ties and easy ocean access. Complementary products fed the trade. Portugal sent oil, wine, fruit, dyestuffs and salt to the North. In return it received mainly cloth, but also small manufactures. London, Southampton and western ports such as Bristol benefited from this trade, while Lisbon maintained an English factory, which was granted privileges and protection in the fourteenth century.46 Commodities moved in English, Portuguese and Italian ships, and distinctions about the origins of the merchant capital spawning these voyages were often unclear. Nevertheless, the English appeared to provide the greater capital investment through the end of the fifteenth century, which showed in their control of the shipping from Lisbon to England.47 The volume of the trade in the fifteenth century waxed and waned according to political circumstances, but in busy years a dozen or so ships from Portugal might visit English harbors. Fewer English ships visited Portuguese harbors, but English cargoes were characterized by much

Pohl, Die Portugiesen in Antwerpen, 68–9. This process of merchant migration has received its best explanation to date from Oscar Gelderblom, Zuid-Nederlandse kooplieden en de opkomst van de Amsterdamse stapelmarkt (1578–1630) (Hilversum: Verloren, 2000). His ideas are also synthesized in English in Oscar Gelderblom, “Antwerp Merchants in Amsterdam after the Revolt,” in International Trade in the Low Countries (14th–16th Centuries) Merchants, Organization, Infrastructure, ed. Peter Stabel, Bruno Blondé, and Anke Greve (Apeldoorn: Garant, 2000), 228–30. Gelderblom echoes Jan de Vries and Ad van der Woude in believing that Amsterdam’s rise was a result of its own maturation, independent of the chaos in Antwerp in the last two decades of the seventeenth century. As Gelderblom indicates, by the time Parma took Antwerp, 100 merchants from the southern Low Countries had already settled in Amsterdam. Between 1578 and 1630, over 400 such merchant families immigrated to Amsterdam. See also: de Vries and van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, 366–9. 46 For the Bristol trade with Portugal, which was not insubstantial in the sixteenth century, see David Harris Sacks, The Widening Gate: Bristol and the Atlantic Economy, 1450–1700 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 27–48, 66–7. At least a few ships from Bristol made their way directly to Madeira during this century. 47 Wendy R. Childs, “Anglo-Portuguese Trade in the Fifteenth Century,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6, no. 2 (1992): 206–7. 45

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higher value, while bulk commodities dominated the routes northward.48 Portuguese commodities as a percentage of total British imports were not high—they were outstripped by goods from Castile—but satisfied a significant niche in British markets. By the end of the fifteenth century, the growing importance of sugar as a Portuguese export changed the nature of the Luso-English trade. Sugar made its first appearance in English customs accounts in the middle of the fifteenth century and was counted in crates, hundredweights, quantities of powdered sugar, sugar loaves and barrels of molasses. Most came from Lisbon, probably of Madeiran origin.49 Sugar helped drive an increase in trade with England in the 1490s. In 1494–5, nineteen Portuguese ships arrived in London. These carried 120 tons of wine and 1,081 crates of sugar. An Italian, Giovanni Batista, arranged for the import of much of this sugar, but Portuguese merchants actually owned much of it, and Portuguese ships carried it. Portuguese cargoes held much more value than previously. Additionally, other semi-luxury goods now appeared amongst cargoes in Portuguese ships. The expanding Atlantic trading empire allowed Portuguese merchants to acquire more capital and export more valuable products. The balance of trade was changing.50 Nevertheless, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, direct trade between Portugal and England was relatively modest, no matter how propitious the circumstances. Castile, in spite of endemic political friction with the English crown, remained the chief exporter of Iberian products to England. Although Portuguese merchant capital was clearly growing by the end of the sixteenth century, its merchant community probably did not have the means to trade directly in two large northern markets. Given their limitations, Portuguese merchants were forced to specialize. As we have seen, they chose the Low Countries entrepôts, initially Bruges, and, by the end of the fifteenth century, Antwerp.51 Indeed, the city on the Schelde drew merchant energies from everywhere. From 1480–1582, English trade also primarily went to Antwerp, especially that of the large London merchants.52 Ibid., 204–5. Ibid., 200. 50 Ibid., 209, 212. 51 Ibid., 215, 219. 52 Kenneth R. Andrews, Trade, Plunder and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480–1630 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 63. Pohl also mentions a large English nation in Antwerp. In 1560 there were 300 to 500 48 49

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The limitations of Portuguese trade with England extended to the shipping sector. As Portuguese trade grew in the sixteenth century, the English were ill equipped to take advantage of it, at least as carriers. The British merchant fleet was small throughout most of the sixteenth century. In 1582 no more than 250 ships of greater than 80 tons were reported in a government survey; of vessels larger than 200 tons, fewer than 20 existed.53 From this period on, the number of ships—especially large ones—increased, but this advance was spurred by the attractions of privateering, brought on by the English war with Spain. Right up to 1603, large quantities of Portuguese commodities reached English ports, though not through legitimate channels. These goods arrived in the holds of privateering vessels.54 Even after James I made peace with the Spanish crown in 1604, English shipping was ill suited to the needs of Portuguese trade. By 1629, the number of private vessels of 100 tons had doubled, and now there were about 150 of 200 tons and more.55 However, even as the British merchant marine grew, it failed to remain competitive with Dutch shipping. An English preference for large and heavily armed and manned ships was due to the threat from Dunkirk privateers and Barbary Corsairs. Furthermore, the crown encouraged the building and equipping of these large vessels, which might also be used for maritime defense. Before 1630, then, the distinction between the royal navy and the merchant marine remained somewhat blurred. The result for commerce was not altogether favorable. In the early decades of the seventeenth century, English freight charges remained stubbornly high compared to those of the Dutch.56 A golden age of trade between England and Portugal only commenced later in the century. Dutch advantage over English traders at this time was not unique. In the second half of the sixteenth century, the maritime towns of

English in Antwerp involved in trade. In 1574 there were said to be 300. See: Pohl, Die Portugiesen in Antwerpen, 73. 53 Andrews, Trade, Plunder and Settlement, 22. 54 Pauline Croft has argued for a considerable continuity of trade with England during the war, but this is not supported by a large amount of evidence. Some trade undoubtedly survived through the Atlantic Islands. Nevertheless, the volume of shipping was small compared to that supplied by Dutch and Hansa fleets. Pauline Croft, “Trading with the Enemy,” The Historical Journal 32, no. 3 (1989): 289–30. See also: G.V. Scammell, “The English in the Atlantic Islands, c. 1450–1650,” Mariner’s Mirror 72, no. 3 (1986): 295–317. 55 Andrews, Trade, Plunder and Settlement, 24. 56 Ibid., 25.

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Holland and Zeeland squeezed out other competitors as well, with important consequences for Portugal. By 1600 the northern Netherlands dominated the exchange of bulk commodities—particularly salt and grain—to and from Portugal. Dutch merchants initially entered this business indirectly. Grain transactions could be organized in any center of capital and credit, although by mid-century merchants tended to employ cities in Holland and elsewhere as trans-shipment centers. Unlike the ‘rich trades’ which were associated with monopoly and which utilized a narrow range of ports, the trade in bulk commodities was decentralized. Antwerp’s merchants continued to organize this kind of traffic in considerable quantities, but essentially it was open to any merchant with appropriate connections linking Iberian demand with German and Baltic ports. A very early record for this kind of traffic shows the pattern. A Portuguese merchant, Andrea Diaz, along with two Hansa merchants based in London, freighted a ship from Danzig, David, with grain and flour in Amsterdam for a trip to Lisbon in 1560. When it called in Weymouth, authorities there confiscated the cargo since there was a grain shortage in the area.57 Clearly there was little bar to entry in the bulk carrying trade, and Dutch merchants took rich advantage. Just as Hamburg rose above its Hansa competitors in the sixteenth century, Dutch ships in their turn began to dominate the traditional Hansa Westfahrt linking the Baltic Sea and the Iberian Peninsula. At the same time, towns in Holland and Zeeland emerged as finance and trans-shipment centers, with Amsterdam as the clear primus in this commerce.58 Dutch ships continued to make direct journeys between Baltic ports and the Iberian Peninsula, forming a trade triangle when they returned to Dutch ports.59 Nevertheless, it was common—at least as early as 1560—for merchants to load grain in Amsterdam or other Dutch ports as well.60 Aside from the dynamism of its ship-building sector, which introduced the highly competitive fluit in the last part of the sixteenth century, the Netherlands were strategically located halfway between Baltic and Iberian markets 57 Rudolf Häpke, ed., Niederländische Akten und Urkunden zur Geschichte der Hanse und zur Deutschen Seegeschichte, 2 vols. (Lübeck: Gebrüder Borchers, 1923), 2:50. 58 Israel, Dutch Primacy, 48–52. 59 Christopher Ebert, “Dutch Trade with Brazil Before the Dutch West India Company, 1587–1621,” in Riches from Atlantic Commerce, ed. Victor Enthoven (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 49. 60 Häpke, ed., Niederländische Akten und Urkunden, 1:50.

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and therefore privy to the most up-to-date information about supply and demand.61 The structural shift in Baltic-Iberian trade towards Dutch carriers and trans-shipment centers was bolstered by two major rises in demand: the Portuguese demand for grain, and the Dutch demand for salt. Luís Mendes Vasconcelos wrote in the early part of the 17th century that 3,000 ships, most carrying grain, entered the Lisbon harbor every year.62 While this was a manifest exaggeration, it pointed towards an important reality: Lisbon was growing larger and hungrier. Largest by far of the Portuguese cities, Lisbon’s population increased from around 100,000 in the middle of the sixteenth century, to 165,000 by 1620.63 Never capable of sustaining its population on the resources of its hinterland, Lisbon’s growth drove trade with the cities that marketed the harvest of the breadbasket east of the Elbe to new levels. This phenomenon brought the Dutch to Portugal in the first place, and it was so important that even in times of Habsburg trade embargoes against Dutch shipping, the crown was forced to face reality and allow exceptions for Dutch vessels carrying grain. During the Twelve Year Truce (1609–1621) this trade exploded (See Table 2.1). At the same time, Portuguese salt came to play a vital role in the Dutch fishing economy. Nearly submerged in salt water, the Netherlands nevertheless lacked the climatological conditions to produce salt through evaporation. Just such conditions existed abundantly in various parts of Portugal, particularly at the mouths of several rivers in Setubal Bay, not far south of Lisbon. The Dutch were not restricted to Portuguese markets for salt; there were also important saltpans in France. But they preferred Setubal salt for its better quality and price. It supported the Dutch herring fisheries in the North Sea, which itself provided a major export commodity for the Dutch Republic. When Dutch access to Portuguese salt was denied during embargoes, the Dutch went far to find new sources of supply, and, in fact, it was an embargo that led the Dutch to seek salt on the ‘Wild Coast’ of South America in the early part of the seventeenth century. Again, the Setubal-salt trade boomed during the Truce. So important was trade in Baltic grain and

61 62 63

Israel, Dutch Primacy, 48–52. Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:37. Ibid., 1:35.

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Portuguese salt to merchants in Zeeland and Holland that it fell under the category of moedernegotie, or ‘mother trade.’64 Not all Dutch harbors benefited equally at this time. The distribution of customs receipts in the Dutch Republic show Amsterdam’s inexorable rise to preeminence among the Republic’s ports. From 1589–96, Zeeland collected 39% of total customs revenue, leaving 25% to Rotterdam and Amsterdam. By the 1620s, Amsterdam and other Zuider Zee ports collected 58% of customs revenues, while Zeeland and Rotterdam collected each about 20%.65 Much of this income derived from trade with Portugal. In the first few decades of the seventeenth century, Amsterdam consolidated its leading position among Dutch towns. The volume of shipping that the bulk trade generated in the Dutch Republic should not be underestimated. As Table 2.1 indicates, in a seven-year period, at least 680 ships were contracted in Amsterdam for back and forth trips between the Baltic and the region commonly referred to as Spain, but actually encompassing the area from the French coast to the Straits of Gibraltar. And these are only the surviving recorded contracts for what had become an extremely common shipping route. The actual volume of shipping was undoubtedly much higher. Of these contracts, 437 (64%) stipulated ports of call in Portugal, chiefly Setubal. The fall in number of these contracts after 1598 was due to a Spanish embargo on Dutch shipping, which affected a very hardy trade. As Table 2.1 and Figure 2.1 show, Portugal’s export economy was moving decidedly into the sphere of Holland, which was becoming one of Portugal’s biggest trading partners at the end of the sixteenth century. The data from these tables also show the continued strength of the trade in bulk commodities—such as salt—that had characterized Portuguese trade since the middle ages. But the implication for the Brazilian sugar trade is obvious. Portugal was an established port of call for merchants and seamen from many cities in the northeast of Europe. The introduction of new colonial products, including sugar, into the Portuguese trade economy did not necessitate a major restructuring of trade routes, at least not in the re-export phases. Amsterdam—grown

64 de Vries and van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, 368, 370, 419–20. For a description of the early efforts of the Dutch to retrieve salt in America, see: Cornelis C. Goslinga, The Dutch in the Caribbean and on the Wild Coast 1580–1680 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1971). 65 de Vries and van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, 406–7.

portuguese trade with northwestern europe Year

Total

Baltic-‘Spain’

‘Spain’-Baltic

1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600 Total

114 194 81 134 127 102 114 866

10 (9%) 11 (6%) 11 (14%) 36 (27%) 42 (33%) 1 (1%) 3 (2%) 114 (12%)

74 (65%) 148 (76%) 47 (58%) 68 (58%) 46 (36%) 93 (91%) 88 (77%) 564 (55%)

Table 2.1

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Freight contracts celebrated in Amsterdam involving the Baltic trade

Source: Winkelman, ed. Bronnen voor de geschiedenis van de Nederlandse oostzeehandel in de zeventiende eeuw, 6 vols., RGP, grote ser. no. 133, 161, 178, 184, 185, 186 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1971–83), 2:XXIII.

Number of Ships

200 Aveiro Viana Porto Lisbon Setubal

150 100 50 0 1594

1595

Figure 2.1

1596

1597

1598

1599

1600

Planned voyages from Holland to Portugal

Source: Winkelman, ed. Bronnen voor de geschiedenis van de Nederlandse oostzeehandel, vol. 2. These represent voyages with a Baltic leg as well (see Appendix B).

strong on the trading of bulk products with Portugal—soon began to attract Portugal’s higher value colonial products, including Brazilian sugar. Refineries blossomed in Amsterdam after 1580, rising from one in that year to fifteen in 1600 and 30 in 1620.66 The trajectory of the trade in Brazilian sugar followed Portugal’s overall trade with northwestern Europe to a large extent, as pre-existing networks incorporated new colonial products. A significant development in the sixteenth century was the rise of Antwerp as the northern staple par excellence for Portuguese domestic and colonial products. A

66

Poelwijk, ‘In dienste vant suyckerbacken’, 102.

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considerable Portuguese merchant immigration attested to Antwerp’s importance. It also became a favored center for Portugal’s merchants to do business in various other parts of northern Europe, including England, southern Germany and the Baltic Region. Not surprisingly, much of the early Brazilian sugar re-exported from Portugal entered and was refined in Antwerp before it traveled to markets elsewhere. Political woes in Brabant at the end of the century did not completely put a halt to Antwerp’s importance for Portugal’s trade. However, increasingly after 1550, political and religious turmoil and the closing of the Schelde by the Sea-beggars of Zeeland diminished Antwerp’s dominance and decentralized the northern market for sugar. Dutch and German ports—bolstered by a vigorous merchant marine—benefited from Brazilian sugar imports. But during the Twelve Year Truce the Dutch undoubtedly became the largest importers, followed by Antwerp and Hamburg. But if the Dutch became increasingly involved in the sugar trade, both as investors and shippers, this fact should be understood in the context of their increasing dominance as carriers in Portugal’s traditional bulk-goods trade. This success in bulk trades developed independently of Antwerp’s problems. Nevertheless, Antwerp’s decline eventually did benefit Amsterdam through immigration. In the first decades of the seventeenth century, Portuguese merchants in Antwerp began to move—in ever increasing numbers—into the northern Netherlands, especially to Amsterdam. Partly as a result of this relocation of human capital, Amsterdam showed a clear advantage as a location from which to trade with the Iberian Peninsula, particularly during the Twelve-Year Truce. Amsterdam’s importance for Portugal rested initially on its dominance in the bulk carrying trades. Later, the ‘rich trades’—including sugar—strengthened this relationship. However, as the next chapter shows, this strong relationship was subject to political interference.

CHAPTER THREE

SUGAR, INSTITUTIONS AND POLITICS Various institutions and organizations affected Portugal’s Brazil trade, from the level of the crown to municipal authorities. The institutional setting was far from static and responded to the increasing volume of trade as well as to political, military and fiscal exigencies. This chapter examines the institutional context of the Brazilian sugar trade with several goals in mind. First it seeks to describe the institutions that governed the trade, and the costs that they imposed on it. The system of taxation that affected sugar is essential for an eventual understanding of the profitability of the trade, considered in Chapter 8. But also, the political context is important since it led to periodic attempts to restrict or otherwise control the sugar trade. Although I argue that the trade was relatively free and continuous from its inception until the third decade of the seventeenth century, there is no denying that patterns of trade were sometimes disrupted as a result of political and military events. Two major factors emerged early in the history of sugar production in Brazil that would significantly affect the structure and rhythms of the trade. The first was that the trade was initially free. In Portugal, the earliest framework for facilitating, regulating and taxing trade emerged mostly under the Aviz dynasty and underwent significant transformations, especially after the Habsburgs gained the Portuguese crown in 1580. Brazil never organized on the principle of a factory system such as the Portuguese trading endeavors on the West-African coast and in the Indian Ocean. Even though there was an early attempt to establish a factory near Cabo Frio, the crown neglected it. At least initially, officials deemed the captain-donatary system to work better than direct crown exploitation.1 Consequently, the trade in sugar was also open to

1 Diffie and Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 316. For general information on the ancient regime in Portugal see: Vitorino Magalhães Godinho, Estrutura da antiga sociedade portuguesa (Lisbon: 1977); as well as a very good summary by the same author in English: Vitorino Magalhães Godinho, “The Portuguese Empire 1565–1665,” The Journal of European economic history 30, no. 1 (2001): 49–104; also: Veríssimo J. Serrão,

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anyone, i.e. it was ‘free trade,’ although this was not the situation for the brazilwood trade, which was organized as a crown monopoly. The main restriction was in the area of transport. Here the crown required that ships returning from Brazil should call in Portugal so that cargoes could be taxed. Nevertheless, the main purpose of this legislation was to ensure that some of the profit from sugar would enter crown coffers, not to restrict the trade to a particular group. The second major factor affecting the sugar trade was the involvement of Portugal in the dynastic struggles of the Spanish Habsburgs following the union of the Iberian crowns in 1580. Subsequently, Portugal’s trade with previously friendly regions, especially England and the Dutch Republic, came into conflict with the political objectives of successive Spanish-Habsburg rulers. These northern European nations, in turn, responded in belligerent ways. This did not mean that trade was broken off entirely. Merchants in both regions continued to trade during periods of prohibition. But increasingly, laws in both regions affecting the Brazilian sugar trade were promulgated for purely political and military reasons. As a result, free trade in Brazil came increasingly under threat, disrupted as a result of policies resulting from the Eighty Year War between the Spanish Habsburgs and the Dutch Republic. In the period up to 1621, however, this was an ad hoc process, and not a result of the conscious application of mercantilist principles. The establishment of the WIC in 1621 marked a turning point for the Atlantic trade in Brazilian sugar, since the leaders of the Dutch Republic attempted to incorporate this trade into a monopolistic, partly state-organized system. Nevertheless, even then, many merchants were not ready to abandon the system that had prevailed before.2 Various institutions governed the sugar trade in the Portuguese kingdom. The original function of administration of trade and finances in both Portugal and Brazil belonged to the Vedores da Fazenda, a body of three governing from Lisbon. This function was somewhat subsumed under the Concelho da Fazenda, formed in 1560, although the role of Vedores did not die out entirely. The Concelho increased in power over time.

O tempo dos Filipes em Portugal e no Brasil (1580–1668) (Lisbon: Edições Colibri, 1994); and, not least: Antonio Manuel Hespanha, As vésperas do leviathan: instituições e poder político Portugal-Séc. XVII (Coimbra: Livraria Almedina, 1994). 2 In subsequent decades the Portuguese crown did attempt to control the sugar trade—also unsuccessfully—through a government granted monopoly. This receives detailed treatment in Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 477–586.

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In 1604 another council with somewhat-overlapping functions came briefly into power. This was the Concelho da India, which had authority of nearly the whole empire. This, however, only survived for ten years. A separate permanent council supervising overseas affairs did not come into existence again until 1643 with the Concelho Ultramarino.3 One of the institutions answering to the Conselho da Fazenda was the Alfândega, or customs house, with a staff that regulated the flows of commodities in and out of the kingdom’s ports at home and abroad. The usual structure incorporated a factor and guards, judges ( juízes), who arbitrated in matters concerning customs duties, with appeals going to the Conselho. There was also a whole apparatus of scribes, officials and porters who watched for contraband, supervised payment, sealed merchandise that had paid duties, and generally attended to disputes regarding duties and payments.4 The principal of taxation on sugar was firmly in place by the early 16th century in Madeira, then the largest producer of sugar, although the tax regime was different from that which would eventually govern Brazil. In 1530, taxes paid in Madeira averaged about 25% for branco. This involved a 20% tax known as the quinto and another known as a dízima de saída, usually less than 8%.5 Sugar from Madeira in this early period was also sent directly to various export markets, especially in Flanders and Italy. This was different from the Brazilian norm.6 In Brazil the dízima was the principal tax, and fell on producers. Here it was a 10% tax collected by the crown on the value of sugar in Brazil. It was often paid in sugar, and its collection was farmed out to merchants in Brazil. Exemptions were granted in certain cases, especially for newly constructed engenhos, which were free from taxes for ten years. This exemption, in particular, appeared to result in widespread fraud, as false certificates of exemption passed through customs houses in the

Godinho, “The Portuguese Empire,” 70–2. Hespanha, As vésperas do leviathan, 216–17. 5 Fernando Jasmins Pereira, “O açúcar madeirense de 1500 à 1537, produção e preços,” Estudos Políticos e Sociais: Instituto superior de ciências sociais e política ultramarina 7, no. 1 (1969): 136–8. 6 Virgínia Rau and Jorge de Macedo, “O açúcar na Ilha da Madeira: Análise de um cálculo de produção dos fins do século XV,” Actas: Congresso Internacional de Historia dos Descobrimentos 5, no. 1 (1961): 193. The “Livro do almoxarifado dos açuquares das partes do Funchal,” mentioned here, gave export quotas, which probably were much higher than actual amounts of export achieved. They limited export to 120,000 arrobas total, of which: 7,000 to Portugal, 40,000 to Flanders, 13,000 to Genoa and 15,000 to Venice. 3 4

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decades following 1590. In some cases, the provenance of sugar was disguised under complex financial transactions, facilitated by letters of exchange.7 Other taxes paid in Brazil were usually of an exceptional nature, levied in the context of war.8 Most taxation, however, fell on merchants and was levied in the metropolis. One form of taxation, of medieval origin, was the marco dos navios, which envisioned a surcharge on shipping for the maintenance of port facilities. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the principle of maritime taxation had extended to the creation of a board of 12 Corretores de Mercadorias, who were appointed by the Câmara (town council) from among the merchant community, and whose functions included overseeing the freighting process and collecting tax. As with the brokers’ guilds in northern cities, they helped to ensure transparency in commodities pricing and to collect taxes for the Câmara. Their take in 1512 could amount to 10% of the value of transactions, but from this time on, a steadily declining portion of the value of trade went to the Corretores, as trade became more regularized and their specialty function seemed ever less essential.9 Other taxes were higher. Tax structure was not uniform in Portugal in the early modern era, so the burden could vary from port to port. Most goods, including sugar, were assessed upon arrival in the Alfândega. Here the usual taxes fell under the categories of dízima, the sisa, a sales tax, and tolls (portagem).10 The principle was that goods paid the dízima upon entrance and the sisa upon resale. Since it was difficult to collect the sisa once goods had passed through customs, it was customary to collect it upon entry in the Alfândega, at least in Lisbon, Setubal and the Algarve. These practices led to a blurring of the distinctions between different taxes over time.11 Another tax affected Brazilian sugar if it passed first through Madeira or the Azores. Here a total of 20% was levied—in Lisbon, if it had passed through the Azores—or otherwise in Madeira itself.12

7 This was instituted at the behest of the first governor of Brazil, Tomé de Sousa, in order to encourage the industry. Mauro, Portugal, o Brasil e o Atlântico, 1:300–1. 8 Ibid., 1:304. 9 Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:39–42. 10 Mauro, Portugal, o Brasil e o Atlântico, 1:305. 11 Hespanha, As vésperas do leviathan, 121. 12 Mauro, Portugal, o Brasil e o Atlântico, 1:305. Also: “Preço do açúcar em Lisboa” in the appendix (there are no page numbers in the appendices in this edition).

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New taxes arrived with the Spanish-Habsburg monarchy. Upon his ascent to the throne in 1580, Philip II had promised not to impose extraordinary revenues in the kingdom of Portugal without consulting a Cortes. In 1593 he reneged, imposing a 3% tax on seaborne trade, the consulado. In 1606 this tax yielded 55 million reis.13 Like most taxes, this one was farmed to merchants and its collection by the Rendeiros do Tres Percento was sometimes the source of contention between traders.14 Given the lack of uniformity in the practices of various ports, it is difficult to say with precision what the tax rate on sugar was in the metropolis. In Lisbon where the tax rate was probably highest, the dízima and sisa alone accounted for 20%.15 Combined with other taxes, the total rate was higher. In 1602, the States General of the Dutch Republic reported after an investigation that the tax on sugar in Lisbon was rarely 20%, but usually 23% to 30%, including the consulado.16 Mauro reports that in 1614, the tax burden on sugar was calculated at 280 reis per arroba. According to his estimate of a 1614 price of 1,000 reis per arroba of white sugar, this would represent about 30% of the value of the sugar in the Lisbon market.17 This corresponds with the estimate of a Dutchman in 1624 that taxes on sugar in Portugal represented about 30% of its value.18 Since most sugar moved through Lisbon, it seems fair to say that a 30% rate was not atypical. Among Portugal’s ports Viana was a bargain. In regard to sugar, Viana possessed the right to apply sisa to crates of sugar as opposed to arrobas. Considering that around 1615 a typical crate of sugar contained around 13.5 arrobas, the reduction of taxes was significant, and 13 Peter Thomas Rooney, “Habsburg Fiscal Policies in Portugal 1580–1640,” The Journal of European Economic History 23, no. 3 (1994): 553. 14 Or at least this was claimed by at least one defendant in an Inquisition trial, Marcos de Góes. He said that one of his accusers, who had been the Rendeiro in Porto, bore him a grudge since Marcos and his partners frequently unloaded shipments of Brazilian sugar in Vila do Conde instead of Porto, depriving the tax collector of income. Other officials of the Alfândega disputed this. IANTT, IL, Processo de Marcos de Góes, no. 3148. 15 Hespanha, As vésperas do leviathan, 121. 16 (“dat tot Lisbona voir het recht van de suyckeren, die aldair werden ingebracht, betaelt wordt an den coninck van Spaignen, van elcke aroba, niet bedragende over XX ten hondert, daer nochtans wel rekeninge gemaect was van XXIII ofte XXX ten hondert, darinne begrepen het recht van het consulaet . . .”) N. Japikse, ed., RSG, 1600 –1601, RGP, grote ser. no. 85 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1941), 215. 17 This price for sugar in Lisbon, however, is far too low! It may be that merchants contrived to undervalue sugar in the Lisbon Alfândega in order to reduce their taxes. See chapter eight for a range of prices for this decade. 18 Mauro, Portugal, o Brasil e o Atlântico, 1:305.

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the good value afforded through the use of Viana as a trans-shipment port was not lost on Portuguese or foreign traders.19 These privileges regarding customs payments led to continued conflict between the city’s merchants and royal authorities. After 1624 the crown decided to end the sugar exemption and ensure that “sugar is weighed in arrobas and not by the crate and that it is levied by the arroba just as is done in all of the other customs houses in the kingdom.”20 Nevertheless, the privilege was eventually extended in 1628 for ten more years. The Concelho da Fazenda gave as reasons the services provided by the city in the restoration of Bahia and the extra costs the city faced in unloading cargoes owing to the silting of the harbor.21 Once it left Portuguese harbors, sugar was subject to the fiscal administration at its destination. Before 1580 this was most likely to be Antwerp. Here importers of sugar paid a special tax—an avaria—that benefited the Portuguese nation there.22 Other charges—for weighage, broker’s fees, etc—accrued at points of sale and probably were shared by wholesale merchants, refiners and retailers23 In Holland and Zeeland, the principle customs tolls were called convooien en licenten. Originally, the convooigelden were a toll on imports and the licenten on exports. But, after 1582 they were often levied as taxes on both imports and exports, although the licenten retained the sense of special licenses to trade with enemy lands, which included Portugal after 1580. Their rates varied from time to time depending on the circumstances. In this way they were a flexible tool for the state to direct trade policy but also supplied money for the war effort by levying taxes on trade with enemies.24 They were collected by the admiralties, of which there were a total of five: three in Holland (Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the

See chapter eight for a discussion of crate sizes. “o peso dos asuqres se despachem por arrobas e não por caixa e pague-se à rezão das ditas arrobas como se ffaz em todas as mais allfandeguas do reyno.” Quote in: Moreira, Os Mercadores de Viana, 137. 21 Ibid. 22 The term avaria is closely linked with maritime usage in Portugal. It could mean damages to a ship or cargo, as well as the sum of incidental expenses incurred on a voyage, including port fees, tolls, etc. These costs could be collected by captains alongside freight charges, although they formed, comparatively, a small portion of the revenues of a voyage. Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:372–3. 23 Donald J. Harreld, “Antwerp Sugar Prices from the Hundredth Penny Tax Records (1543–45),” Journal of European Economic History 31, no. 3 (2002): 611–17. 24 Johannes Hermann Kernkamp, De handel op den vijand 1572–1609, 2 vols. (Utrecht: Kemink en Zoon N.V., 1931), 1:146. 19 20

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West Friesian cities) and Zeeland and Friesland.25 Although duties were supposed to be applied evenly throughout the Republic, the structure of collection allowed for variations in practice.26 Unfortunately, few records of these duties remain, although it is known that Brazilian sugar was taxed with the convooien en licenten as early as 1597.27 Other taxes that were levied on wholesale shipments of sugar included charges for the use of municipal scales, although various towns organized them differently. In Amsterdam only foreigners paid weighage taxes in transactions with citizens. The fees were very low in comparison to the value of sugar, probably less than 1% in most years. Nevertheless, in 1622, Portuguese merchants in Amsterdam claimed to the States General that 35,000 to 40,000 guilders (5,090,909 to 5,181,818 reis) entered the state’s coffers each year in weighage fees from Brazilian sugar.28 There were also broker’s fees, which although not paid directly to the state, amounted to a tax on merchants. These costs were also very small compared to the value of the sugar.29 Taxes in Amsterdam were far lower than in Lisbon.

de Vries and van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, 98–101. Ibid., 129. 27 The States General set these in that year. The document shows that not all sugar was not synonymous with sugar from Brazil by the end of the sixteenth century since it mentions: “St. Thomas zuyvers suyckers hondert vijfftich ponden; Brasilie-kisten zuyver twee hondert vijftich ponden; Canarie-, Madere-, Barbarie-brootsuycker.” N. Japikse, ed., RSG, 1596–1597, RGP, Grote Ser. No. 62 (The Hague, Nijhoff, 1926), 587. Taxes were probably in the range of 5%. 28 J.W. IJzerman, “Deductie vervaetende den oorspronck ende progres van de vaart ende handel op Brasil, 1622,” in Journael van de reis naar Zuid-Amerika (1598–1601) door Hendrik Ottsen, Linschoten Vereeniging, grote ser. no. 16 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1918), 103. The original was sent to the States General and later distributed to the representatives of the provinces. There is a copy in the ARA, SG (liassen admiraliteiten), 5486 (26 January, 1622). This is the same document that claims that Dutch-based merchants moved two-thirds of the Brazilian sugar. It remains, however, a politically motivated document and is therefore very unreliable as a source for quantifying Dutch trade with Brazil. 29 J.J. Reesse, De Suikerhandel van Amsterdam van het begin der 17de Eeuw tot 1813 (Haarlem: Kleynenberg, 1908), 14–7. Documents provided by Reesse show the waaggeld figured in 1605 as “Allerley suycker, de 100 ponden: 5 stuyvers.” In 1620 it was “Allerley suycker, de 100 ponden: 6 stuyvers.” This would have been a charge on wholesale sugar of all types. In 1620, white sugar in Amsterdam may have cost about 20 groten per pound, so this represents a charge of 12 groten on a volume of sugar that was worth around 2,000 groten, i.e., a nominal fee. The broker’s fee was unequivocally meant to refer to wholesale prices since it was a sale per crate: “Van alle Brasilische ende Maderische suyckeren per kiste 10 st.” This was also nominal, since in a year of high prices, a crate may have been worth 3,800 stuivers. (see chapter eight for prices and measures) Quotes are from CV–CVI. 25 26

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The fiscal regime for sugar, described above, though subject to modifications over time, derived from the traditional taxing authority of the state and municipalities. Merchants perceived them as ordinary costs of doing business, although they might complain or otherwise make efforts to evade taxes. As we will see in a later chapter, the ordinary taxes on sugar did not prevent merchants in the Brazil trade from making a profit. But aside from these various fiscal policies, political considerations affected the sugar trade. When ruling elites acted to regulate the Brazilian sugar trade in extraordinary ways, they proceeded from a variety of motives. One was to maximize revenue. Another was to punish the trade of another state, or to protect the integrity of a dynasty. These motives, sometimes tangled together, can be seen in the following discussion of the changing political contexts of the sugar trade and their concrete results in policy. Before the outbreak of the Eighty Year War between Spain and the Low Countries, trade on the Iberian Peninsula was free for all West European lands, and not subject to a regime of monopolies or privileges.30 The ascension of Philip II to the Portuguese throne in 1581 threw Portugal and its commercial empire into Habsburg Spain’s complex web of European conflicts. Philip II and his advisors seized immediately upon the idea of using Portuguese commerce as a lever against the ‘rebellious provinces.’31 Here sugar exports to the Dutch Republic were of minor consideration. The sixteenth-century embargoes did include bans on Portuguese exports to the Dutch Republic, and Brazilian sugar was affected. But foremost in the minds of Philip and his advisors was to deny Zeeland and Holland—with their thriving herring industries—access to Portuguese salt.32 In 1578 and 1579 around 130 Dutch ships per year delivered Portuguese salt to the Baltic region alone, so this trade was very considerable.33

Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 1. An emissary of Philip II to Portugal, fray Hernando del Castillo, stated clearly the importance of Portugal to Philip’s hegemonic ambitions: the Portuguese succession was a trial that “Dios lo encamina para dar orden en toda la christiandad y para reprimir la potencia del turco por la yndia y enfrenar los hereges de flandes, Inglaterra y alemania, que braman en oyendo que vuestra majestad ha de poner los pies en Lisboa.” Quoted in: Fernando Jesús Bouza Alvarez, “Portugal en la politica flamenca de Felipe II: sal, pimienta y rebelion en los Paises Bajos,” Hispania; revista española de historia 52, no. 2 (1992): 692. 32 Ibid. See also Jonathan Irvine Israel, The Dutch Republic and the Hispanic World, 1606 –1661 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 25. 33 See Appendix C, Table C.2, “Volume of shipping through the Øresund.” 30 31

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The plans of Philip II and his advisors reached fruition in 1585 with a general embargo on Dutch and English shipping that lasted until 1590. Historians have debated the effectiveness of this embargo.34 On the one hand, records for the Øresund tolls indicate a sharp drop in Dutch shipping following 1580 with a concomitant rise in shipping from various German and Scandinavian harbors. In fact, Philip II wished for Hanseatic to replace Dutch shipping, and he ordered Parma to write to the cities of the League to tell them that Iberian ports were open to them.35 At the same time, there is ample evidence of Dutch cheating. An arrest and search of supposedly neutral ships in Andalusia in 1587 led to the seizure of ninety-four disguised ‘Dutch’ vessels. The king took note of the fraud, as did his memorialists, one of whom wrote that supposedly ‘Hanseatic’ ships should be checked for Dutch crews.36 Although the illegal trade that most concerned Philip and his advisors was the import in Dutch manufactures and especially the export of Portuguese salt, the re-export market for Brazilian sugar would have been affected as well. While there is little evidence from this time, undoubtedly the 1580s were a difficult time for the trade, at least in the transportation sector. Habsburg policies toward England and the Dutch Republic had obvious deleterious effects, in the first case by inducing English privateering, and in the second by decreasing the supply of shipping for the re-export phase of the sugar trade. With the Spanish recapture of Antwerp in 1585, the main wholesale market for Brazilian sugar went into decline, at least temporarily. Too few records from this period allow us to quantify the effects on the Brazilian sugar

34 Jonathan Israel has argued for the effectiveness of the sixteenth century embargoes pace views expressed by, among others, Fernand Braudel and Henry Kamen, who believed that they were not enforceable and were often circumvented. Israel bases his arguments on the Danish tolls and Amsterdam notarial records summarized by IJzerman. Given the lack of any statistically reliable database for this period, it is unlikely that this debate will ever be satisfactorily resolved, but at least regarding the first embargo, it seems clear that evasion was widespread. Israel, Empires and Entrepôts, 189–201. See also: Nina Ellinger Bang, Tabeller over Skibsfart og Varetransport genem Øresund 1497–1669, 2 vols. (Copenhagen: Gyldenalske Boghandel, 1928); de Vries and van der Woude, The First Modern Economy, 370–1. 35 Carlos Gomez-Centurion Jimenez, “Las relaciones hispano-hanseaticas durante el reinado de Felipe II,” Revista de historía naval 4, no. 15 (1986): 69. 36 “porque tienen por estilo de nombrar un maestre alemán para que diga que vienen de Alemania y las urcas en que los dichos maestres alemanes vienen son postiças y traen patentes falsas y hacen ventas falsas de las dichas urcas para poder con ellas contratar en estos reinos, y las mercadurías que en las dichas urcas traen realmente son de Holanda y Zelanda, donde se fabrican y hacen, y no de Alemania como dicen.” quoted in Ibid., 71–2.

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trade, but it must have been quite disruptive. The documented rise of the London sugar refining industry in this decade is ample testimony to the re-routing of supply.37 Following the lapse of the first Habsburg embargo in 1590, Portuguese trade with northern Europe resumed with vigor, although England remained under the ban. This decade also marked probably the greatest involvement of non-Portuguese shipping in all phases of sugar transport. Trade with Brazil had been opened to Catholic foreigners since 1532 with a 10% tariff on exports and imports, and from this time on Low Countries merchants were active on the Brazilian coast. Dom Sebastião set the first restriction on foreigners in 1571, allowing only Portuguese ships to sail to Brazil, but this ban was honored in the breach. Philip II renewed it in 1591, but foreign shipping remained in Brazilian waters, either under subterfuge, or with licenses granted by the crown.38 Probably, with the devastation wrought on Portuguese shipping by Elizabethan privateers, there was no alternative except to resort to foreign ships to bring sugar and brazilwood from the Brazilian coast. German and Dutch ships played a significant role in this trade.39 With the ascension of Philip III to the Habsburg throne, Dutch trade was once again barred from Habsburg realms in 1598. As with the previous one, this embargo intended mainly to deprive fisheries in the Dutch Republic of Portuguese salt and to deprive the Dutch of markets for their manufactured goods in the Iberian Peninsula. The success of this embargo is also subject to debate, but it seems certain that it had some effect since the Spanish put more effort into enforcement. One result was to spur the Dutch to sail in greater numbers to the coasts of Venezuela and New Granada to collect salt, and to the West African coast to trade. On the other hand, some of the regular flow of commodities, including sugar, probably continued through fraud and contraband trade.40 37 Kenneth R. Andrews, Elizabethan Privateering: English Privateering during the Spanish War, 1585 –1603 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964), 207–9. 38 Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 100–3. 39 Mello, “Os Livros de Saídas,” 21–143; J.W. IJzerman, ed., “Amsterdamsche bevrachtingscontracten, 1519–1602. Deel 1, De vaart op Spanje en Portugal”, Economisch-Historisch Jaarboek (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1931). 40 Israel, Empires and Entrepôts, 197–201. Dutch exports continued to reach Iberian ports, and commodities were traded with the connivance in some cases of Flemish merchants. In January of 1601, the adelantado of Sanlúcar jailed three hundred factors and correspondents trading in forbidden Dutch goods. After they were forced to confess about their counterparts in Seville, authorities there seized thirty persons, the majority

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The second embargo was partially rescinded in 1603–4, when trade to merchants of the Dutch Republic was permitted with a 30% duty on all exports and imports. The first embargo on Dutch shipping had required merchants from other European regions to demonstrate that their goods were not of Dutch provenance, and that they did not intend to eventually trade in Dutch ports. However, these forms of evidence were easily falsified. The edict of Philip III on February 27, 1603 was an attempt to formalize the Dutch ban through a system of tariffs. Products from the ‘obedient provinces’ were exempted. Nevertheless, this system quickly broke down, mainly because of a lack of capacity for enforcement. Smuggling and falsification were widely used to circumvent the tariff.41 Overall, though, trade suffered. In spite of a brief respite in 1603–4, the evidence from the period of 1598 to 1609 shows a decline of Dutch shipping to the Iberian Peninsula with benefits going to shippers from German harbors.42 However, the Spanish embargo was not an unmitigated blessing for the Hansa cities either. The Spanish kings not only tried to bar Dutch ships from Iberian harbors, but also attempted to strangle Dutch commerce by denying it access to the Baltic. Repeatedly, Brussels-based diplomats under Philip II and Philip III attempted to negotiate with Scandinavian and Polish rulers to this end, but to no avail. The Hansa cities were loathe to surrender their political neutrality, and Baltic trade remained open to Dutch vessels.43 In fact, merchants between the Dutch Republic and the Hansa cities moved freely. With the interests of the two areas so interlinked and merchant capital flowing freely, it is difficult to identify clearly who lost and who benefited from the Spanish policy of embargoes.44 Hanseatic merchants also hated the system of licenses and certificates meant to prevent trade items from going back and forth between the United Provinces and Iberia, finding it cumbersome and damaging.

of them from the southern Netherlands and holding goods valued at 260,000 ducats (104,000,000 reis). Furthermore, Dunkirk pirates who preyed on Dutch shipping during the first decade of the 17th century sometimes unloaded their prizes in Lisbon, even though Spanish authorities forbade this. Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 8–10. 41 Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 33–5. 42 At the start of the embargo, some Dutch shipping was simply re-routed through Emden, but aware of this fraud, Spanish officials eventually even applied the embargo to this German port in 1607. Israel, Empires and Entrepôts, 196. 43 Kellenbenz, Unternehmerkrafte, 17. 44 Gomez-Centurion Jimenez, “Las Relaciones Hispano-hanseaticas,” 70.

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When the 30%-tariff system was introduced in 1603, these merchants felt further beleaguered. Spanish protests that the system was meant to benefit and not hinder trade with north-German merchants did not convince the German traders. Later in the decade, Hansa cities sent several merchant missions to the Spanish court to sue for less Byzantine trade regulations. By 1607 a trade agreement was reached that gave some relief to the Hansa merchants.45 But a workable trade advantage obtained at the expense of the United Provinces was to be short lived. Already in 1608 with the easing of trade restrictions, Dutch ships were found daily in Lisbon’s harbors.46 A year later, as a Twelve Year Truce established peace between Spain and the Dutch Republic, Hansa advantages were nullified.47 Yet another problem for German traders was that in periods of conflict, Hansa vessels on the Westfahrt to Lisbon were subject to seizure by Dutch privateers. The States General of Holland met Spanish embargoes with prohibitions of trade of their own, and although these were not generally so systematically enforced, they led to state-sanctioned efforts to prevent foreign ships from provisioning Iberian harbors. The advantages of the removal of Dutch competition were counterbalanced by the resulting tensions with the Dutch. As in Portugal, Spanish trade policy in the Baltic—conditioned by dynastic concerns—put pressure on longstanding and mutually advantageous trade relationships and defied market logic. The effects for the sugar trade were pronounced, as the second embargo of 1598 also marked the beginning of a serious enforcement of the ban on foreign shipping in Brazilian waters. This started with Dutch ships, and there is little record of Dutch ships traveling legally to Brazil after 1598.48 The effects also extended to the metropolis. After the interlude of 1603, restrictions on the trade in Dutch goods were extended in 1604 and 1605 to ban all merchants and ships’ captains of 45 Ibid., 80–3. According to Portuguese records studied by Costa, in the years 1605–1607, among the 92 known foreign ships leaving Lisbon’s harbor, only 5 were recorded as being from Hamburg. In these years, French and English shipping appeared to dominate. Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:124–5. Nevertheless, I suspect that this number for Hamburg ships is far too low. Probably, a good number of the ships listed as English or French were actually Dutch and German, traveling with false passports. 46 Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 12–4. 47 Kellenbenz, Unternehmerkrafte, 21–24. 48 For exceptions, see chapter 7. Of course, the lack of records documenting this trade does not mean that it did not exist, but there is no reason to think there was widespread evasion.

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Dutch origin from Iberian ports, whether or not they traded in Dutch goods. This ban applied even to those who had relatives in the rebel provinces. Lisbon was hit particularly hard, since it had stronger connections to northern Netherlands ports, and no less than 24 Lisbon-based merchants were banned.49 Dutch merchants, therefore, were in a poor position to carry on any trade with Brazil whatsoever. However, the 1598 embargo did not prevent properly licensed ships from other nations from stopping in Brazil, and they continued to do so through the early years of the sixteenth century. In the 1590s the brazilwood contract was in the hands of Flemish merchants, and the Flemish merchant community in Brazil remained strong. In fact, the presence of Low Countries residents in Olinda was so marked by the 1590s that Portuguese residents showed xenophobic reactions.50 1605 marked a watershed year after which the Habsburg crown made serious efforts to restrict all foreigners from Brazilian ports. Partly this was a reaction to the discovery that the Flemish contract holders for the brazilwood monopoly had taken cargoes directly to northern European ports from Pernambuco instead of trans-shipping in Lisbon as required.51 As a result, Philip III issued an Alvará in 1605 forbidding the presence of all non-Portuguese in Brazil.52 This time the ban was enforced. In 1606 the crown took away the brazilwood contract from Flemish merchants and gave it to Sebastião de Carvalho with a high salary to guard against corruption. It also sent a military officer, Alexandre de Moura, to root out Low Countries residents in Pernambuco and Paraíba. The king repeated warnings against foreigners in Brazil in 1612, 1613, 1615, and 1617. Officials on the spot, however, sometimes colluded with Low Countries residents and visitors.53 Flemish residents in Brazil did not entirely disappear. This was obvious from the fact that in the 1620s there was renewed suspicion in Madrid that they could form a fifth column and cooperate with Dutch invaders. Occasionally exemptions were made for foreign captains. Philip II had foreseen exemptions for foreign shipping in the Brazil trade, and—as Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 12. Ibid., 105–6. 51 Ibid., 107. 52 A copy is in the: AHU, Livro do Brasil, Cod. 1193 (1605). Subsequently, lists of ‘authorized’ foreign residents seem to have been kept, and these were small in number. Livro Primeiro do Governo do Brasil, 1607–1633, (Rio de Janeiro: Seção de Publicações do Serviço de Documentação, 1958), 183–5. 53 Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 108–9. 49 50

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described above—many foreign ships loaded sugar and brazilwood at the end of the sixteenth century. But licenses were controlled much more rigorously after 1605. Now shippers had to receive a passport from the Conselho da India and pay a bond of 10,000 cruzados to guarantee their return to Portugal. An attempt to abolish the licenses altogether called forth too much protest, though. Foreign sailors also sometimes received licenses to travel on Spanish and Portuguese ships.54 At the expiration of the Truce in 1621, a new Habsburg embargo was placed on foreign shipping.55 This was the most sustained of all. Olivares supervised the creation of two institutions to counter the Dutch at sea and to prohibit their products from entering Iberian markets. These were the Almirantazgo, formed in1623 in Seville, and the Consejo, Junta y Tribunal Superior del Almirantazgo, founded in 1625 in Madrid.56 The principle here was to control trade from the center with rigid and strong instruments of enforcement. In particular, these institutions tried to remove enforcement from the hands of local officials and magistrates, who were seen as likely to collude in contraband trade. The Almirantazgo was not applied to Portugal until 1628, but the Habsburg crown took measures as early as 1622 to strike the Dutch in Portuguese harbors. Between 1622 and 1624, Castilian officials went to Lisbon and Setubal to supervise the ports and arrived later in Porto and Faro. These measures prompted a veritable chorus of protest from local Portuguese officials.57 From the Dutch side, a trade that may have involved more than 800 vessels annually was under threat. Not surprisingly, after 1621 the collapse of the Iberian routes led Holland to experience a shipping slump.58 This history of intermittent Habsburg embargoes beginning in 1580 did not result in a consistent response from those affected in the Dutch Republic. Some officials wished to retaliate, and, in fact, the States General enacted embargoes of its own from time to time. On the other hand, many merchants and seamen who relied on income from

Ibid., 106–7. The motive once again was to weaken the Dutch Republic by attacking their economic base. See: Jonathan Irvine Israel, “A Conflict of Empires: Spain and the Netherlands 1618–1648,” Past and Present 76 (1977): 34–74. 56 Bernardo José López Belinchón, “‘Sacar la Sustancia al Reino.’ comercio, contrabando y conversos Portugueses, 1621–1640,” Hispania; revista española de historia 61, no. 3 (2001): 1029–30. 57 Israel, Empires and Entrepôts, 204–5. 58 Israel, “A Conflict of Empires,” 48. 54

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the carrying trade to the Iberian Peninsula wished to continue to trade freely. As in the Spanish-Habsburg kingdoms, official policy could not reconcile political and mercantile interests. But generally, before 1621 the States General and the Dutch Admiralties did not consistently enforce the occasional rules prohibiting Iberian trade. Until the establishment of the WIC, mercantile interests prevailed. From the point of view of the States General around 1580, continued trade with Spain and Portugal was undesirable. Their greatest fear was the loss of Dutch shipping through arrest in Iberian harbors, although they hoped their merchant marine could carry on the Iberian trade through intermediary ports on the southern French coast. The largest Dutch cities, especially Amsterdam and Rotterdam did not agree. Their concern was that, barred from the bulk carrying trade, German cities would fill the gap in the supply of shipping. In spite of attempted bans, direct shipping continued. On one day alone in May 1581, not less than two hundred ships from Zeeland sailed to France, Spain and Portugal.59 After 1585, under English pressure, the issue was taken up again in the States General. Once again Amsterdam protested against trade restrictions that would affect the Baltic carrying trade.60 The English interest prevailed, at least temporarily, and on April 4, 1586, the Earl of Leicester—then directing foreign policy in the Republic—issued a decree banning all shipping to Spain and Portugal. In 1587, with the fall of Leicester, this was reversed.61 Dutch trade with Portugal blossomed in the 1590s, but came under threat again following the second embargo of 1598. Once again, trade became an instrument of war. In April of 1599, the States General issued an edict forbidding all trade in enemy lands, including the southern Netherlands. This time they included provisions to prevent banned trade from falling into the hands of German or English merchants. Predictably, the Hansa towns protested, but nevertheless began to assume a greater volume of the carrying trade to the Iberian Peninsula, often in partnership with Dutch merchants.62 At the same time the Colleges of Admiralty had starved themselves of the resources needed for enforcement of the new trade rules, since their usual income derived from the licenten levied on trade with the southern ‘obedient provinces.’ 59 60 61 62

Kernkamp, De Handel op den Vijand, 1:117–20. Ibid., 1:166–74. Ibid., 1:218–29. Ibid., 1:235–47.

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Trading with enemy states was too important a part of the economy of the young Republic to stifle with politically motivated embargoes, and the States General partially lifted the ban on trade with these regions.63 A similar cycle was played out in 1605. After Spanish officials began to arrest Dutch ships again in Iberian harbors—following the collapse of their short-lived tariff policy—the States General retaliated and forbade shipping to Iberian ports.64 As measures affecting trade passed back and forth, not only the vital salt and grain carrying trades of the Holland and Zeeland fleets were at stake, but also the burgeoning ‘rich trades’ of the Dutch Republic. In regard to the trade in Asian and African goods, the States General coordinated the activities of merchants who were competing with the Portuguese. After 1602 they sailed together under the auspices of the VOC. But by this time, the Dutch had also established themselves as carriers of Brazilian produce, both in the primary and secondary routes of redistribution. Furthermore, Amsterdam had developed a sugar industry, which depended on continued imports of this commodity. While still not as important as Setubal salt, Brazilian sugar now figured significantly in the Dutch Republic’s trade relationship with Portugal. Not surprisingly, during the second embargo, some voices in the Dutch Republic clamored for a chartered company—patterned on the VOC—to prosecute trade and persecute the Habsburg interest in the Atlantic. These demands found their most articulate exposition through the Antwerp-born merchant Willem Usselincx, a resident of Middleburg since 1591. Usselincx had in common with many of his expatriate brethren a strong attachment to Calvinism and a deep hatred of the Spanish. Nevertheless, his vision for a West India Company embraced more the idea of agrarian colonies rather than a monopoly trade company to pry America’s trade from Spanish hands. By 1606, Usselincx had the ear of the States of Holland, which began to study the matter.65 The plans of Usselincx in these years came to nothing, sacrificed to the negotiations for a truce with Spain by the chief politician in the Republic, the Advocaat van den Lande, Oldenbarnevelt. Ibid., 1:253–4. Ibid., 1:306. 65 For the WIC in general see: Henk den Heijer, De geschiedenis van de WIC (Zutphen: Walburg, 1994). A recent short summary in English by the same author can be found in Heijer, “The Dutch West India Company,” 77–112. See also Boxer’s classic account, although Boxer follows the “Deductie” in erroneously exaggerating the role of the Dutch in trade with Brazil during the Twelve Year Truce. C.R. Boxer, The Dutch in Brazil, 1624 –1654 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957). 63 64

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Still, ideas for a West India Company showed that the Dutch viewed Portuguese trade, and Brazilian trade in particular, in a special light. Officials of the Dutch Republic tended to believe that it should not be subject to the same restrictions that applied to trade with Spain in general. In 1600 some Dutch vessels continued to carry sugar and brazilwood to the Dutch Republic via Lisbon, and the States General deliberated whether to consider this traffic under the rubric of ‘enemy shipping.’66 On October 2 of the same year, the States General decided to grant an exemption, allowing free entry of goods from Brazil. This was granted as a favor to Portuguese New Christian merchants resident in Amsterdam, but was extended to any resident merchants who wished to trade in Africa or on the Brazilian coast.67 Later in the year, the States General granted several passports for such journeys, some of which allowed for return sailing via Portugal.68 Nevertheless, the exemption was understood to allow sugar and brazilwood to enter the Dutch Republic: sailing to Brazil via Portugal was permitted, but the return trip to the Dutch Republic was generally meant to be direct so that taxes on sugar would not benefit the Spanish crown.69

66 One case was under discussion in August 1600. The ship was Dutch and carrying not only a Brazilian cargo but also a Portuguese family picked up in Lisbon as well. The Holland admiralty asked the States General if it should be considered enemy shipping in accordance with the edict from the previous year. Nevertheless a petition for the freedom of the ship and cargo was: “gepresenteert by verscheyden coopluiden, ingesetenen van Amstelredam, soo voor haerselver als uuyt den naem ende van wegen de gemeene geinteresseerde ingesetenen van dese landen ende coopluiden van de Portugiesche nacie.” Japikse, ed., RSG, 1600 –1601, 339. 67 “De Portugiesche nacie ende heuren handel in dese landen zijn gegunt, ende dat die van deselve nacie oversulcx vryelijck ende vredelijck sullen genieten d’effecten van de entrecourssen, contracten ende resolutiën, die van wegen de Vereenichde Provintiën met hen van tijt te tijt respectivelijck sijn gemaect ende op hare voorgaende remonstrantiën genomen, voorsooveele aengaet de goeden ende coopmanschappen, die sy in dese landen alreede gebrocht hebben ende voorder noch sullen brengen ende vertieren, ende dat sy dienvolgende oock over Lisbona ofte Portugael op Brasiliën sullen mogen handelen, gelijck dat gebruckelijck is, ende heure goeden in dese landen brengen, ordonnerende de collegiën ter Admiraliteyt respective hen hierna te reguleren ende tselve alsoo to gedoogen, sonder den remonstranten daerinne eenige verhinderinge te doen ofte gedoogen gedaen to wordden.” Ibid., 341. 68 Ibid., 344–5. Another passport was granted in February 1601 to Jacques Karbeel and Alexander van den Berge, merchants of Amsterdam, to travel with a Dutch ship to the Canary Islands and to continue from there with some German and Spanish sailors to Brazil, and then to return to Tenerife and finally Holland. 694. 69 Kernkamp, De Handel op den Vijand, 2:279. An incident to this effect can be seen in the proceedings of the States General. Several ships were taken off the coast of Portugal in 1602 by a fleet commanded by the Heer van Opdam, arriving from Brazil with cargoes of sugar belonging to “Spaignaerden, Portugesen ende anderen in Spaignen, Portugael, Brasiliën, tot Antwerpen ende in andere steden ofte plaetssen van den vyant woonende” Those cargoes and ships found to belong to the enemy were to be sold with the profits going to the state. Those merchants in the Republic that could guarantee that

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The ad hoc and contradictory nature of trade policies during this time is reflected by the fact that the Republic’s warships continued to seize Brazilian cargoes, even as the States General tried to facilitate their arrival in the Dutch Republic. At the end of 1603, at the request of the Portuguese merchant community, the States General ruled that those merchants who lost Brazilian cargoes to the Dutch Admiralty at sea would be compensated as long as they were legal residents of the Republic. In spite of the risks, various merchants in the Republic, Portuguese or otherwise, continued to contemplate trade with Brazil. Later in the same year, three requests for passports for Brazil came before the States General, all from companies of Dutch merchants. Whether these trips were actually made or were successful is not known.70 The Twelve Year Truce of 1609 restored free trade and shipping only between the United Provinces and the Iberian Peninsula, but some merchants in the former still considered direct trade with Brazil to be licit. The States General took a somewhat ambivalent position, typified by its support of the voyage of Spilbergen to South America in 1614.71 Generally, though, the Truce put to rest any plans in the Republic for officially organized direct exploitation or trade in south Atlantic waters. In 1618, the political climate changed significantly. In Spain, some ministers clamored for renewed hostilities against the ‘rebellious provinces.’ In the Dutch Republic, the war party—dominated by militant Calvinists and expatriate merchants such as Usselincx—clamored for

the cargoes did not belong to the enemy were allowed to claim them, provided that they paid the same duties to the Admiralty that they would have paid in the Lisbon Alfândega. Among those affected by the seizure were some of the richest members of Antwerp’s Portuguese merchant community, along with their correspondents elsewhere: “Nicolaes Rodriguez Devora, Duarte Ximenex ende Anthonio Faillero, woonende binnen Antwerpen, mitsgaders Duarte Fernandes, Francisco Pinto de Brito, Hendrick Garcez, Manuel Rodriges Veiga ende Fernando de Mercado, woonachtich tot Amstelredam, alle coopluyden van Portugesche nacie.” H.H.P. Rijperman, ed., RSG, 1602–1603, RGP, grote ser. no. 92 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1950), 215–6, 289. 70 On Nov. 14 from Martin van de Moere, Johan Samuel and Paulus Bisschop, Amsterdam merchants; Nov. 15 from Hans van Uffele, from Amsterdam; and Dec. 13 from Jan Jacobsz. Huydecooper, Adriaan Barthout, Joachim Diercsz, Assuerus van Blokland, Barent Sas, Henrick Ghijsbertsz Delft, and Lucas van der Venne. Rijperman, ed., RSG, 1602–1603, 630 –1. 71 On this topic, more in chapter 7. For an account of the voyage: J.C.M. Warnsinck, ed., De reis om de wereld van Joris van Spilbergen, 1614–1617, vol. 47, Linschoten Vereeniging, grote ser. no. 38 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1943).

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an aggressive anti-Spanish policy. With the fall of Oldenbarnevelt in 1618, it seemed clear in the Republic, as in Spain, that the Truce would not be renewed.72 Almost immediately work began on a charter plan for a West India Company. In 1621, the year of the expiration of the Truce, a plan was approved by the States General, but in a form quite different from that envisioned by Usselincx. Gone were the projects for agricultural colonies. Instead the WIC was envisioned as a monopoly company and a military tool against Spain. The model here was the VOC, which in the twenty years since its founding had managed to inflict serious damage on the Portuguese trade empire in the Indian Ocean. Like the VOC, the WIC would exist as a partnership between private capital and the state. Its leaders were to be a board of major-shareholder directors (Heeren Negentien) and the States General, which would provide general direction for the company.73 Unfortunately for Portugal and Brazil, the WIC set its sights on both sides of the South Atlantic, as well as the rest of America and the Pacific islands. It was probably inevitable that the WIC would target Portuguese possessions in Brazil and Africa, since assets in these regions were relatively undefended and thinly spread over thousands of miles of coastline. Additionally, there were still merchants and mariners in the Dutch Republic who had experience of sailing in Brazilian waters, and important trade linked the Dutch and Brazilian economies, albeit through Portugal.74

Heijer, “The Dutch West India Company,” 80–1. Ibid. 74 Boxer, The Dutch in Brazil, 14–5. Boxer and others make much of Dutch beliefs that the Portuguese would welcome Dutch intervention in Brazil, either because they were New Christians chafing under the Inquisition persecution, or that they hated the Spanish overlordship of Portugal. There is no doubt that these sorts of ideas circulated around the Republic, but I think the most telling motive for attacking Brazil was its vulnerability. Dutch notions of Portugal’s purportedly shallow allegiance to Spain extended to indigenous people, who many Dutch assumed would greet them as saviors. A good example of the pro-invasion arguments made during this time is: “Advies tot aanbeveling van de verovering van Brazilië,” Kroniek van het Historisch Genootschap ser. 6, 27, no. 2 (1871): 228–56. The political and intellectual importance of South America in the Republic been recently explored by Benjamin Schmidt, Innocence Abroad: The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570 –1670 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Nevertheless, no matter the ideas floating around in the pamphlet literature of the time, the decision to attack Brazil and Portuguese shipping was—no doubt—practically motivated. 72 73

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As it happened, Portugal’s Brazil trade received a short reprieve, owing to the long interval required to achieve full capitalization for the WIC. Potential investors balked, fearful of the costs and risk of challenging the Spanish crown directly at sea. As the Deductie of 1622 shows, many Dutch merchants had grown rich on the Brazil trade conducted legally through Portugal, and they were not willing to upset the status quo. Squabbles among the different provinces about their role in the WIC contributed to the sluggishness of capitalization. Finally, though, the WIC was capitalized in 1623 with 7,108,000 guilders (1,033,890,909 reis).75 The activities of the WIC after 1623 were a far cry from the aims stated in the preamble of “shipping, trade, and commerce with the West Indies, Africa, and the Americas.”76 Taking Portuguese prizes soon became its chief activity. The WIC was not able to consolidate its invasion of Bahia in 1624, but it managed to inflict damage on the economy of Bahia and forced Spain and Portugal to make enormous expenditures in the rescue effort.77 In the years following, WIC squadrons took a high toll on Portuguese Atlantic shipping. 1628 saw the Spanish silver fleet fall into the hands of WIC admiral, Piet Heyn. But that year was also awful for Portuguese shipping. The official chronicler of the early years of the WIC, de Laet, described the squadron sent under the command of Dirck Symonsz. This captured a number of Portuguese caravels—along with a ship laden with goods from Goa—off the coast of Brazil. The fleet returned home with booty of 1,500 crates of sugar, not to mention gems, spices and other costly merchandise.78 Total losses to Portuguese shipping in the years 1623 to 1634 amounted to 428 vessels.79 By the last years of the 1620s, a trade that had been recently thriving was threatened on many fronts. Not just the traffic in Brazilian products, but also the trade in bulk commodities was dismantled. In Portuguese

Heijer, “The Dutch West India Company,” 81. Johannes de Laet, Jaerlyck verhael van de verrichtinghen der gheoctroyeerde West-Indische Compagnie in derthien boecken, 4 vols. (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1931–1937), 1:7. 77 Stuart B. Schwartz, “The Voyage of the Vassals: Royal Power, Noble Obligations, and Merchant Capital before the Portuguese Restoration of Independence, 1624–1640,” American Historical Review 96, no. 3 (1991): 735–62. 78 Laet, Jaerlyck verhael, 2:47–56. This would amount to 27,000 arrobas in this year, since one crate of sugar around this time generally held 18 arrobas. 79 Costa, O transporte no Atlântico 1:206. 75 76

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harbors, the Almirantazgo remained a vigilant presence.80 On the seas, ordinary Portuguese or Dutch shipping that attempted to ply well-used routes was subject to attacks by Dutch or Spanish admiralties, as well as Dunkirk privateers. There were still Dutch and Portuguese merchants and captains who were willing to run this gauntlet in a climate of high risk but still higher prices. Several freight contracts appear in the Amsterdam archives dating from the last years of the decade that show plans to move commodities—including sugar—to and from Portugal. These contracts envisioned sailing around England and Scotland and collecting freight in the Algarve, where, presumably, embargo enforcement was less keen.81 These documents may point to an even larger underground trade, since presumably many merchants trading illegally would not want to publicize their activities by writing contracts. Meanwhile, the WIC—freshly capitalized after its stunning capture of the Spanish silver fleet in Matanzas in 1628—decided to invade Brazil once again. This time it focused on the rich region around Olinda and Recife. The invasion of 1630—supported by sixty-seven sail and seven thousand soldiers—met with greater success than the attempt to hold Bahia.82 This time the Dutch managed to stay. The basic structure that had emerged over the course of eighty years of sugar exploitation in Brazil was permanently altered. Now Brazilian sugar from the newly formed Dutch Brazilian colony of Nieuw Holland sailed directly in great quantities to northwestern Europe, instead of through Portugal. As masters of the richest sugar-producing region in the world, the WIC faced its own problems with regulating and controlling the sugar trade: ones that were familiar to Portuguese colonial administrators. Dutch demand for sugar did not keep pace with increased supply as sugar flowed directly to the Dutch Republic. Low profitability coupled with the enormous costs associated with defense caused WIC investors to eventually abandon Dutch Brazil. However, when the last bits of Dutch Brazil returned to Portuguese rule in 1654, the Atlantic sugar economy had undergone a further structural shift. Caribbean 80 If the Brazil trade suffered in the 1620s as a result of Portugal’s incorporation into the Spanish empire, Portuguese merchants compensated themselves handsomely by crawling into every corner of the Spanish Empire and Spain itself, many of them growing enormously rich in the process. See Studnicki-Gizbert, A Nation upon the Ocean Sea, especially Chapter 4. 81 E.M. Koen, “Notarial Records Relating to the Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam up to 1639,” Studia Rosenthaliana 35, no. 1 (2001): 69, 70, 76, 77, 87. 82 Heijer, “The Dutch West India Company,” 82.

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competition meant that Brazilian sugar was no longer the dominant commodity in Atlantic trade. In the half century to 1630, Brazilian sugar was a commodity traded relatively freely between different Atlantic empires. However, two major areas of state involvement affected the trade. States whose merchants participated in the trade taxed it and organized it in order to gain revenue. The bulk of the taxation fell in the Portuguese Empire, although the Portuguese crown otherwise considered the trade to be ‘free.’ Intermittent prohibitions against foreign shipping in Brazil during this time are best seen in the context of protecting state income. The crown was concerned that foreigners might deliver sugar from Brazil directly to markets in northwestern Europe, depriving the crown of important revenue. Also, the Brazilian sugar trade was subject to political interference. In the period to 1621, this arose mostly on the Portuguese side, affected by Spanish-Habsburg dynastic concerns. Habsburg trade embargoes were aimed specifically at the Dutch Republic and occurred in the context of the Eighty Year War. Their effects were generally small, but from roughly 1598 to 1608 they did partially manage to drive the Dutch out of the Portuguese trading sphere, making the trade less ‘free’ even though other imperial groups were less directly affected in their participation. During a twelve-year period of peace beginning in 1609, and a spectacular renewal of Dutch involvement, the Brazilian sugar trade once again assumed the inter-imperial character it had held from its inception, even if strictures against direct shipping remained in place. Finally, political motives once again trumped free trade, even though a full restructuring of the trade took time to develop. This time political moves were bilateral. Habsburg embargoes against the Dutch were renewed over Portuguese protests. On the other side, officials of the Dutch Republic took the initiative to control the sugar trade, and trade became ever less free during the third decade of the seventeenth century. After 1621 the Dutch attempted to seize the Brazilian sugar supply through attacks on the Portuguese merchant marine and territorial conquest in Brazil. In spite of a false start in Bahia in 1624–5, they achieved the latter goal with the successful invasion of Pernambuco in 1630. A ‘free’ trade in Brazilian sugar finally fell victim to the politics of war and a more pronounced mercantilist ideology as embodied in the WIC.

CHAPTER FOUR

MERCHANTS AND MERCHANT NETWORKS As the previous chapter showed, the political and institutional setting for the sugar trade was complex and shifting in the period to 1630. Brazilian sugar continued to reach markets in northwestern Europe in ever-greater quantities, but tools of government policy such as trade restrictions, embargoes and privateering affected the routes along which sugar was traded. In the years between 1550 and 1630 northwestern cities—including Hamburg, Antwerp and Amsterdam—saw their fortunes wax and wane as redistribution centers for Brazilian sugar. Sugar refining also experienced stages of growth and decline in various entrepôts. In Portugal, levels of traffic through the three main ports—Lisbon, Porto and Viana—were sensitive to the shifting political and military situations. The Almirantazgo punished Lisbon to the benefit of ports where Spanish official vigilance was more relaxed. The institutional framework for the sugar trade, however, could not thwart its basic logic. Markets for Brazilian sugar remained primarily in northwestern Europe, and this is where sugar eventually went, no matter that crown officials attempted to use trade as a political tool. While there were undoubtedly winners and losers in the sugar trade, a certain level of continuity in commodity flow remained. This was possible because of the merchants and merchant organizations that facilitated the trade. In particular, they were atomistic, highly mobile and organized into far-flung correspondent networks. Their organization allowed them to react to political and military events reasonably quickly and to maintain investment even as the structure of the trade underwent periodic shifts. Before examining these networks, it is necessary to address a pertinent discussion in the scholarly literature. A common assumption in the historiography of merchant organization in Portugal is that New Christian immigration to Amsterdam explains the success of that metropolis in attracting Portuguese exports—especially sugar—after 1600. According to this view, Portuguese Christian merchants of Jewish ancestry began to move to Amsterdam in ever-greater numbers, arriving both from Portugal and other northern European cities such as

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Antwerp and Hamburg. They were attracted by Amsterdam’s increasing importance as a commercial center and also driven from Portugal by the Inquisition, which mainly targeted so-called ‘New Christians,’ i.e. the Christian descendants of Iberian Jews who had converted in the early part of the sixteenth century. This immigration, so the argument goes, gave Amsterdam a body of merchants who were specialists in the re-export of Portuguese colonial commodities and well connected with merchant brethren in the Portuguese ports. Consequently, especially during the Twelve Year Truce, Amsterdam was able to capture a large share of Portugal’s colonial commerce and rose to preeminence as the redistribution center for Portuguese colonial products.1 This argument has much to recommend it. The contribution of Portuguese New Christians to Amsterdam’s commercial life in the seventeenth century seems beyond dispute and is well documented by evidence from Amsterdam’s notarial archives, which continues to be summarized in the Studia Rosenthaliana.2 Other evidence, particularly from the records of the Holy Office in Portugal, attests to the far-ranging family networks of Portuguese New Christian merchants, and their commercial dynamism. For various good reasons, Portuguese New Christian merchant networks have attracted much scholarly attention. For many of their ‘Old Christian’ compatriots, converts to Christianity and their descendants belonged in a special category, and Iberian laws, as well as the Inquisition, reinforced this sense of separateness. The fact that some New Christians returned to Judaism in the more tolerant environment of the Dutch Republic probably did not help to dispel prejudice against this group.3 Outside of Portugal, New Christians were sometimes seen as weak in their loyalty to the Portuguese crown. One cornerstone of the rationale for the WIC’s invasion of Brazil was the belief that New Christians residing there would form a fifth column, cooperating with their tolerant invaders in order to shake off the hated Portuguese overlordship.4 Contemporary scholars have

1 For a general discussion see: Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans; Jonathan Irvine Israel, “Sephardic Immigration into the Dutch Republic, 1595–1672,” Studia Rosenthaliana 23, no. 2 (1989): 45–53. 2 Koen, “Notarial Records,” 1, no. 1 (1967). This series has continued through present issues. 3 The Inquisition did much to promote this view, which supported the widespread belief that members of society with Jewish blood were predisposed to heresy. Salomon, Portrait of a New Christian, 34–35. 4 Boxer, The Dutch in Brazil, 14–5.

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debated widely whether the distinctive identity of New Christians was real or imagined, and it is not necessary to revisit these debates here. However, in the context of the period dealt with here, it seems that New Christians have sometimes formed a category of analysis that is not always appropriate. It is indisputable that the geographic dispersion of New Christian families put them in a good position to take advantage of new circuits of trade, but this does not necessarily mean that there is a single cultural or ethnic explanation for business practices in the case of the sugar trade. To be fair, locating business practices in a cultural framework can provide considerable explanatory power. Avner Greif has done intriguing work that examines the cultural dimensions of merchant organization in the Middle Ages. To summarize a complex argument, Greif has posited two types of merchant organization: collectivist and individualist. In the first type, merchants traded primarily within their ethnic group, where their need to retain a good reputation ensured reciprocal honoring of contracts in the absence of state-sponsored mechanisms. These merchants also tended to form horizontal trading structures with merchants acting as each other’s agents in transactions. On the other hand, individualist merchant societies relied on contract-enforcing institutions associated with individualist societies, and often traded outside of their ethnic group.5 Greif ’s case studies did not include the early-modern merchant groups involved in the sugar trade. Nor has anyone, to my knowledge, applied Greif ’s models specifically to Portuguese New-Christians merchants. However a number of historians have suggested a Sephardic monopoly in the sugar trade, implying a ‘collectivist’ mentality, even if they did not explicitly use Greif ’s categories.6 But available evidence indicates that sugar traders do not easily correspond with Greif ’s models, or with any explanation for business practices that privileges supposed ‘ethnic’ characterizations. Jewish or New Christian identity may be an interesting category of analysis in many contexts, but, unfortunately, it fails to explain much about early Atlantic shipping. Here it is clear that merchants of Sephardic extraction, although well represented, were by no means the exclusive players. Avner Greif, “On the Interrelations and Economic Implications of Economic, Social, Political, and Normative Factors: Reflections from Two Late Medieval Societies.” 6 See notes 8–10 in the Introduction for a discussion of this historiography. 5

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Nor does it appear that their business practices were different from those of other merchant groups. As David Grant Smith has shown, Old and New Christians in Portugal showed remarkable integration in their economic activities, often intermarried and essentially practiced business in the same way. Leonor Costa, following Smith, has also underplayed the New- and Old-Christian dichotomy in her study of the founding of the Companhia Geral do Comércio do Brasil. Here she sees more of a significant differentiation between larger and smaller wholesale merchants as social groups in Portugal.7 To be sure, the ethnicities and religions that merchants embraced, however fluid, played an important role in forming business relationships. However, in this case it is impossible to reduce trade networks to religion or ethnic identity. Returning to Greif ’s models, it would appear that most Atlantic merchants during this period, whatever their ethnicity, displayed both collectivist and individualist characteristics.8 Indeed, the logic of merchant activity in the Brazilian sugar trade was determined more by circuits of trade than by any particular national or religious affiliation. Brazil offered a new trans-Atlantic circuit, and merchants organized themselves to meet new opportunities, sending their younger sons to live in Brazil and arrange shipments of brazilwood and sugar. Portugal remained in this scheme a natural returning point, since it was already part of a well-established route linking northern European shipping with Iberian markets. Furthermore, sugar remained only one product traded on the circuit comprising Brazil, the Atlantic Islands, Portugal and northwestern Europe. Profits in trade on this route came from a wide range of commodities, as seen in Chapter 2. Not surprisingly, merchant communities of a very heterogeneous nature collected at the staging points of this trade and were tied together through their common involvement. This chapter offers a descriptive examination of how an inter-imperial merchant network was constructed through space and across political and ethnic boundaries. In regards to Portuguese merchants, specialized portfolios were exceedingly rare in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and there7 Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:515–28. Smith, “Old Christian Merchants and the Foundation of the Brazil Company, 1649,” 233–59. 8 The persistence of family organization—described in this chapter—is a collectivist quality. The widespread use of the correspondence system, which transcended ethnicity, indicates an individualist base for trade. The latter phenomenon is clearly linked to increased state-involvement in business practice, a phenomenon discussed in Chapter 6.

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fore it is difficult to speak of Brazil-traders as a special class of merchants. Most large wholesale traders in Portugal, including those also active in the Carreira da India had some involvement also in the circuits of Brazilian sugar. Boyajian makes this point clearly in examining the largest Portuguese merchants, some of whom also became bankers to the Habsburg court in the 1620s. These Carreira investors included the large merchant families/networks of Brandão, Fernandes, Gomes Denis e Solis, Silveira, Tinoco and Vaz de Souza. All of them had members in Brazil, usually in Bahia or Pernambuco in the period of 1580 to 1640.9 Nor was trading activity restricted to self-proclaimed ‘merchants.’ In the 1640s, a career civil servant, Antonio Teles da Silva traded sugar through a Lisbon correspondent while he was serving as governor of Brazil.10 Unusually, his activities were documented, but dabbling in sugar trading must have been a fairly common activity for government officials in Brazil. Also, considering that trading to Brazil required far less of a capital investment than trading to the East Indies, networks of smaller investors often stood behind large sugar merchants. Captains on sugar routes were themselves small investors in the trade and sometimes built up their capital to become larger ones.11 At least for the period up to 1630, it seems most plausible that investments in the Brazilian sugar trade were widely distributed.12 Who, then, were the personnel in this trade? In the absence of account books, the records of the Portuguese Inquisition sometimes offer a view of the current accounts of merchants who were imprisoned, since the Holy Office attempted a careful rendering of goods to confiscate. One such trial transcript, for Francisco de Palácios, seems fairly typical in showing both the breadth of merchant networks as well as portfolio diversity. In 1620, at the age of 21, Palácios’ business activities

These families were all New Christian. James C. Boyajian, Portuguese Trade in Asia under the Habsburgs, 1580–1640 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 254–7. 10 Virgínia Rau, “Fortunas ultramarinas e a nobreza portuguesa no século XVII,” in Estudos sobre história económica e social do antigo regime, ed. Virgínia Rau (Lisbon: Editorial Presença, 1984), 29–33. 11 Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:438–45. The lack of account books for this period makes it difficult to uncover these networks. 12 Ibid. Leonor Costa believes that, with the erosion of profits in the 1610s, there was some concentration of the business among larger merchants, who also integrated their businesses vertically with mill ownership in Brazil. Her database of freight contracts is suggestive of this, but not totally convincing, since it is fairly thin. 9

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as a relatively young merchant had transpired under the auspices of older relatives or more established merchants. Two of his brothers, Pedro and Jacome de Palácios lived openly as Jews in Hamburg, where they were wholesale traders in, among other things, Brazilian sugar. Another brother, Duarte de Palácios had traded in India, Seville and Hamburg and was then residing in Amsterdam, also openly as a Jew. In 1619 Francisco traveled to Hamburg with a license from the Conselho da Fazenda as a factor for Andre Lopez, the brazilwood contract holder. There he was to purchase grain in exchange for sales of brazilwood. After falling out with his patrons, he left secretly for Amsterdam where he stayed for around eight months before returning to Lisbon, where he was accused of judaizing.13 His penance was apparently light, since when he was taken again before the tribunal of the Holy Office in 1630, this time on charges of sodomy, he was a relatively well-established merchant with a working capital amounting to many thousands of cruzados. According to his inventory, he was involved in transactions linking the East Indies, Brazil, Portugal and northern Europe. He had sent nine barrels of ginger and other merchandise to Hamburg on account of Pedro van Husen.14 At the same time he was waiting for a shipment from Brazil worth 450,000 reis in goods and money that had been freighted by Pasqual Bravo in Bahia and was due to arrive on two Portuguese ships. In the Casa da India he had a quantity of cardamom and some gems. He had also invested in the fleet that had left for India in the previous year, sending more than 500,000 reis in cash, of which he had contributed a fifth of his own capital, and the rest on behalf of Gabriel Gomes and van Husen in Hamburg. He had sugar in Flanders—or perhaps Hamburg—in the power of the same Pedro van Husen and valued at more than 500,000 reis. On the island of Terceira he had another cargo of sugar, in the hands of Baltasar da Costa Pereira: this one valued at 250,000 reis. He had also diversified into ship owning, and owned an eighth of a caravel that had traveled to Rio de Janeiro under captain Francisco Texeira and which was valued at 113,000 reis. Palácios was 13 IANTT, IL, Processo de Francisco de Palácios, no. 4481. His two trials fall under the same inventory number. For Pedro de Palácios see Kellenbenz, “Der Brasilienhandel der Hamburger ‘Portugiesen’,” 316–334. 14 Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:405. This merchant shows up in other documents as a partner/owner with Portuguese merchants from Lisbon, Porto, Viana and Guimarães of a “Flemish” urca. This was in 1628, at which time he was apparently living in Porto.

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also involved in many financial transactions at this time—summarized from his account books—linking him to merchants in Germany, Flanders, Portugal, Brazil and Spain. Most of these were loans, letters of exchange, insurance policies and bottomry loans, i.e. a loan on the value of a ship or cargo.15 This example shows the structure of one merchant’s investments, which encompassed Brazilian sugar.16 Other Inquisition documents indicate that extended networks were quite common. A major move by the Inquisition against New Christians in the city of Porto around 1618 left scores of trial transcripts of New Christian merchants that demonstrate their strong family and trade connections with other merchants throughout Portugal, Brazil and northern Europe.17 One of these defendants, Paulo Lopes Cunha, named around thirty associates—the great majority of them merchants—whom he accused of judaizing. While other defendants may have been more circumspect in naming all of the members of their commercial networks who were New Christians, it seems that large networks were the norm.18 Lopes da Cunha denounced many New Christians associates as judaizers, but he undoubtedly had commercial contact with Old Christians as well. As much evidence from the trial transcripts of the Inquisition archives confirms, Old and New Christians commonly interacted in commercial transactions. This is often demonstrated in the parts of the trials devoted to defense or Defensa, and it shows especially in the Contradittas, in which Old Christians—often merchants and ‘familiars’ of the Inquisition—would confirm the sincerity of the Christian belief

15 IANTT, IL, Processo de Francisco de Palácios, no. 4481. Palácios after his second trial was convicted on sodomy charges and sentenced to four years exile in Angola. Given the death rate for Europeans there, this must have been, as with galley sentences, tantamount to capital punishment. 16 A fair number of scholars have by now presented these types of case studies based on records of the Portuguese inquisition, and these show the patterns of investment of Francisco de Palácios to be quite common. I will not offer details here, but can refer the reader to: Smith, “The Mercantile Class of Portugal and Brazil;” two more recent works by James C. Boyajian, Portuguese Bankers at the Court of Spain, 1626–1650 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1983), and Boyajian, Portuguese Trade in Asia; finally the recent work of Studnicki-Gizbert, A Nation upon the Ocean Sea, also uncovers far-flung Portuguese trading networks through the records of the Spanish inquisition. 17 This event sapped Porto of its dynamism as a commercial center in the early part of the 1620s, coming at an especially bad time on the eve of resumption of hostilities with the Dutch Republic. Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:61–2. 18 IANTT, IC, Processo de Paulo Lopes da Cunha, no. 5385.

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of the defendant and discredit the denunciations of accusers, mostly defendants themselves in Inquisition trials. Defense mostly involved ascribing an ulterior motive for damning testimony, and witnesses for the defense as well as defendants themselves tried to establish the existence of prejudice by mentioning previous quarrels between the merchants and their accusers. So, for example, in the trial of Pedro Aires Vitoria, Bento Novais—an Old Christian merchant—confirmed the enmity between Vitoria and one of his accusers, Luís da Cunha. Da Cunha had sent Vitoria to Brazil to sell some flour and buy sugar, but Vitoria failed to get a good price for the flour in Brazil. This had led to a public spat between the two.19 While focused on New Christians, inquisition documents do not support the conclusion that New Christian commercial networks operated separately from Old Christian ones. This prevalence of widespread merchant networks is also borne out in Leonor Costa’s study. She has found forty-six Portugal-based merchants who, in the period before 1640, had at least three correspondents in the Islands or in Brazil. Some of these merchants had many correspondents, such as Fernão Rodrigues D’Elvas, whose activities described in the notarial archives show eight correspondents in Brazil in the period between 1580 and 1601. Another merchant active in the same period, Rodrigo da Veiga D’Evora, counted nine correspondents in Madeira, Bahia and Pernambuco.20 Furthermore, the total numbers of contacts may have been even higher, since Costa has compiled this list from freight contracts, which typically do not reveal all the investors involved. Among those on her list are two who show the fluidity of Brazilian networks. These are the Porto merchants Domingos Lopes Vitória, with six correspondents in Bahia and Pernambuco, and Francisco de Cáceres, with eight correspondents in Pernambuco and Rio de Janeiro. Evidence from the freight contracts would seem to indicate that these two Porto merchants kept separate groups of correspondents abroad. Elsewhere, however, we can see that these two groups of correspondents may have been interdependent. In the trial of Marcos de Góes, several witnesses

19 Bento Novais claimed: “. . . e que avera tres annos que Luís da Cunha contraditado publicamente se queixava co[m] Reo, lhe não dar satisfassam da dita farinha, e que sobre isso ouve entre elles algumas desaversas e palavras de cuia formalidade se não lembra . . .” Of course, some witnesses and “familiars” supported charges against defendants. IANTT, IC, Processo de Pedro Aires Vitoria, no. 3217. 20 Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:301–5.

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claimed that he arranged numerous shipments of sugar in conjunction with the two Porto merchants named above. Since they all worked together, they presumably had access to each other’s correspondents. Even if correspondents in Brazil tried to form exclusive relationships with investors in the metropolitan center, the prevailing structure of diversified portfolios and multiple investors in a single cargo meant that they were effectively working for other partners, hidden or not.21 Who were the correspondents in Brazil? Costa’s examination of notarial sources gives the names of a great number of merchants in Brazil who arranged sales and shipments of cargoes coming from and going to the metropolis. Many of them probably only resided in Brazil temporarily. Costa found thirty-six who appear to have been particularly active, according to the quantity of notarial documents associated with them. In the period from 1602–1614, for example, Pero Dias Sanches arranged cargoes for at least eight merchants in Portugal.22 Presumably, many correspondents moved back to the metropolis once they had garnered a working capital for themselves. A sojourn in Brazil was not an uncommon occupation for a junior member of a merchant house, and many established merchants had begun their careers this way. One such was Manuel de Medeiros, who established himself as a successful merchant on Lisbon’s merchant row, Rua Nova, via the captaincy of Espírito Santo, where he had traded sugar as a youth.23 Diogo da Fonseca, likewise, returned to Porto after trading in Brazil on behalf of his father, Gonçalo Cardoso.24 Portuguese merchants involved in trading Brazilian sugar were also well represented in the northwestern European port cities where this sugar was destined to travel. Unlike Brazil, where a stint of a few years as a correspondent might mark the beginning of a merchant’s career, some Portuguese merchants only went to northern Europe if they intended to stay permanently. This was especially so with New Christian merchants traveling to Amsterdam, where Judaism was openly practiced. But New

Ibid., and IANTT, IL, Processo de Marcos de Góes, no. 3148. Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:296. These at least were projected shipments, as described in freight contracts. The merchants were Antonio Martins Viegas, Diogo Fernandes D’Elvas, Diogo Ribeiro, Fernão Rodrigues D’Elvas, Garcia Rodrigues Vaz, Gaspar Fernandes Penso, Manuel Rodrigues D’Elvas, Manuel Rodrigues Mértola. 23 IANTT, IL, Processo de Manuel de Medeiros, no. 9974 24 IANTT, IL, Processo de Diogo da Fonseca, no. 9462. This apparently is not the same Gonçalo Cardoso who was active as a merchant in Hamburg after 1610. Kellenbenz, Unternehmerkrafte, 244–5. 21 22

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Christians returning from Hamburg or even Antwerp were also vulnerable to persecution if they returned home. In 1616 officials of the Holy Office in Portugal worried about the synagogues in Amsterdam and Hamburg and feared that the New Christian merchants in Antwerp who had such close relationships with factors and correspondents in Amsterdam and Hamburg would follow the “laws of Moses” when in these cities.25 One New Christian merchant in Portugal, Cristovão Lopes, received advice from two Old Christian friends around this time that he should send his son to “frandes,” (Flanders) where he might become a rich merchant. According to these friends, he refused on the grounds that this area was too uncertain in its adherence to Catholicism.26 Despite the danger of eventual religious persecution, the Portuguese merchant community in Antwerp was still vigorous and maintained connections in every part of Portugal’s overseas trade, including the sugar trade with Brazil. As Pohl has shown, younger merchants seeking to make their names would sometimes take temporary residence in Antwerp before returning to the Iberian Peninsula or moving on to other parts. Aside from these up-and-comers, the ‘nation’ in Antwerp was anchored in several large families. These included the Ximenes family, who for over a century remained at the apex of Portuguese society in the city on the Schelde. The Ximenes, with members in Lisbon, Seville, Cadiz, Florence, Venice, Hamburg and elsewhere, traded in spices, sugar, grain, gems, wood, textiles, and books. They also married into prominent Low Countries families and had familial ties with other successful Portuguese merchant clans, including the D’Evora, and the D’Andrade.27 Diego Teixeira de Sampaio typifies a merchant life that embraced much of the physical extent of the sugar trade to Antwerp. Born in

25 One official claimed: “E consta por duas testemunhas de crédito que muitos dos ditos cristãosnovos de Anvers vão à dita cidade de Amsterdão e continuam na dita sinagoga e não conversam nem tratam com os judeus portugueses que vão a ela principalmente no tempo em que os judeus fazem suas festas e os que vivem em Holanda e Zelandia vão quase todos os sábados à sinagoga, e os que vivem na mesma cidade de Amsterdão vão três vezes na semana a ela, e é público que nesta cidade de Amsterdão todos os portugueses são judeus.” Isaías Rosa Pereira, ed., A inquisição em Portugal, (Lisbon: Vega, 1993), 81–2. According to the mother of Francisco de Palácios, who testified at his trial, there was even a network of informers, including familiars of the Inquisition who extorted money from New Christian travelers to Amsterdam, threatening to expose them as judaizers. IANTT, IL, Processo de Francisco de Palácios, no. 4481. 26 “tevessem la alguma coisa contra nossa santa fee catholicqua” IANTT, IL, Processo de Cristovão Lopes, no. 1418. 27 Pohl, Die Portugiesen in Antwerpen, 82–3.

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Lisbon in 1581, he began his merchant life in Brazil and had moved to Antwerp by 1613. There he married into the rich and powerful Andrade family and he raised enough wealth to be counted among the richest of the Antwerp Portuguese. In 1646 he moved on to Cologne and later to Hamburg, where he converted to Judaism.28 As with de Sampaio, members of prominent merchant families in Antwerp often radiated out into other northwestern European cities. Holland was frequently the destination. Luís Fernandes was a prominent sugar trader in the second half of the sixteenth century in Antwerp. His brother, Duarte, moved to Amsterdam in the 1590s with his son Manuel Rodrigues da Veiga, who was the first Portuguese resident attested in the city’s notarial archives.29 Manuel’s brother—also named Duarte—moved between Rouen, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. This period marked the beginning of a steady immigration, as many other families followed similar trajectories. Another early arrival was Garcia Pimentel, coming to Holland from Venice in 1596.30 These merchants brought with them a rich world of connections. The trade networks of da Veiga and Pimentel encompassed between them Portugal, Brazil, North Africa, Spain, England, the Atlantic islands, and the Levant.31 Trading sugar appeared to be a chief activity of these early immigrants in Amsterdam, performed in collaboration with family members and correspondents in Antwerp and Portugal.32 Already in 1600, the States General had taken notice of the trading activities of the Portugiesche natie, although their numbers were small.33 In 1602 the Dutch admiralty seized off the coast of Portugal several vessels carrying sugar. Subsequent investigation revealed that the ship’s investors

28 Ibid., 86–87. He was the brother-in-law of Porto merchant Manuel de Andrade: IANTT, IC, Processo de Manuel de Andrade, no. 8970. 29 This was in 1595. See: Koen, “Notarial Records,” 1, no. 1 (1967): 111. 30 Pohl, Die Portugiesen in Antwerpen. 90–1; Koen, “Notarial Records,” 1, no. 1 (1967): 109. It is my purpose here only to provide a few examples that show typical patterns. The subject of Sephardic immigration to northern port cities is already very well documented in the secondary literature. 31 Koen, “Notarial Records,” 1, no. 2 (1967): 110–2, 118–22; 2, no. 1 (1968): 111–12, 114–15, 117–18, 123; Israel, “Sephardic Immigration,” 49. 32 For general information about this immigration: Israel, “Sephardic Immigration,” 45–53; Daniel M. Swetschinski, “The growth and composition of the long-distance trade of England and the Dutch Republic before 1750,” (Brandeis, 1980); and more recently by the same author: Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans. 33 Japikse, ed., RSG, 1600–1601, 339, 341. See also: Arend H. Huussen, “The Legal Position of the Jews in the Dutch Republic,” in Dutch Jewry: Its History and Secular Culture (1500–2000), ed. Jonathan Israel and Reinier Salverda (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 31.

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were New Christians in Amsterdam, including the above-mentioned Manuel Rodriges Veiga, as well as Duarte Fernandes, Francisco Pinto de Brito, Hendrick Garces and Fernando de Mercado. Their Antwerp partners were members of the prominent D’Evora, Ximenes and Faillero merchant houses.34 After the expiration of the Twelve Year Truce, New Christian immigration to Amsterdam accelerated, although numbers remained relatively small in the period up to 1630. One measure of the population is in the number of Portuguese account-holders in Amsterdam’s Bank of Exchange. In 1609 these numbered just twenty-four. They had grown to 106 by 1620, and they remained at about that level until the 1640s, after which Portuguese immigration to Amsterdam increased substantially. Swetschinski has estimated the entire population of Portuguese immigrants of Jewish background in Amsterdam at around 800 in the 1620s.35 Among the most successful in the 1610s was Bento Osorio, who deposed to an Amsterdam notary in 1618 that he had freighted two hundred ships in the previous three years. These were mostly to collect salt in Portugal as the factor of Andrea Lopes Pinto, the asiento contract holder for salt and brazilwood at this time.36 Osorio also traded Brazilian sugar clandestinely after the establishment of the WIC, in which he was a shareholder.37 Portuguese immigration to Hamburg began around the same time as that to Amsterdam. In spite of a long-standing trade relationship between the two areas, in 1600 there were practically no permanent Portuguese residents in Hamburg. Ten years later there were about 20 resident families.38 One of the most prominent of these early merchants was Ruy Fernandes Cardoso, who in 1612 was the largest importer of sugar into the city.39 His brother Gonçalo arranged for shipment from Lisbon, and Gonçalo’s son, Diogo da Fonseca, acted as their correspondent in Brazil. After 1620 their merchant activities in Hamburg apparently ceased, and this may be because of the imprison-

Rijperman, ed., RSG, 1602–1603, 215–6, 289. Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans, 91. 36 Koen, “Notarial Records,” 13, no. 2 (1979): 238. 37 Kellenbenz, “Der Brasilienhandel der Hamburger ‘Portugiesen’,” 324. 38 Kellenbenz, Unternehmerkrafte, 242–3. Hulks or urcas from Hamburg and Lübeck were frequent visitors to Brazilian harbors, as discussed in the previous chapter, but their freights were financed by Portuguese merchants in Portugal and Antwerp and a variety of Flemish and German merchants. 39 Ibid., 244–5. 34 35

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ment of Gonçalo and Diogo by the Holy Office in Portugal in 1618. While Ruy Fernandes also traded in East Indian products, his strong association with Brazilian sugar imports shows the importance of New Christian immigration in developing new markets for this product in northwestern Europe. Another important sugar merchant in Hamburg at this time was Gonçalo Lopes Coutinho. He arranged shipments of Brazilian sugar from Lisbon, Viana and especially Porto, where his brother-in-law was the very successful Porto merchant, Álvaro de Azevedo. Gonçalo’s activities extended to ship owning; he was reported in 1624 as part owner of a ship along with other Portuguese and German merchants. Later he accepted the invitation of the King of Denmark to inhabit the newly founded city of Glückstadt, where, among other things, he started a sugar refinery.40 Portuguese merchants, whether New or Old Christian, in the kingdom or beyond, were not the only ones to trade Brazilian sugar. The importance of Portuguese commodities, such as salt, in larger European trade networks had led to widespread involvement in Portuguese trade in the major port cities long before the Brazilian sugar trade began. European merchants from a wide area were poised to engage in the commercialization of Portuguese colonial products. According to one study, at least 175 merchants or merchant families from Northwest Europe resided in Portugal or Portuguese Atlantic colonies—including Brazil—in the period between 1550 and 1630.41 Records from Madeira show equal numbers of Portuguese and non-Portuguese merchants active on the island in the sixteenth century. Of the 146 non-Portuguese merchants mentioned, 47 indicated Flemish or German provenance.42 Ibid., 251. Drawing widely from Iberian and Low Countries archives, as well as published sources, Eddy Stols’ work is still the most comprehensive study of the presence of foreigners from the southern Netherlands in the Iberian Peninsula or in Spanish and Portuguese colonies. He compiled a list of 587 Low-Countries merchants involved in the Iberian trade. Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, Bijlagen, 1–71. A few on his list are from the northern Netherlands or Germany. 42 Azevedo e Silva, José Manuel, A Madeira e a construção do mundo Atlântico (séculos XV–XVII), 2 vols. (Funchal: Centro de Estudos de História do Atlântico Secretaria Regional do Turismo e Cultura, 1995), I: 400–4. The others were largely from France and Italy. A few hailed from England. For many of these foreigners—including some mentioned below—an earlier commercial presence on Madeira, or other Atlantic Islands, was a convenient starting point for involvement in the Brazilian sugar trade. Indeed, although Madeiran production declined at the same time that Brazilian production soared, the trades were linked. Throughout the period described here, Madeira 40 41

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This is a considerable number, offering firm evidence that Portugal’s main port cities, both in the metropolis and colonies, were often highly cosmopolitan places. Some of these merchant families became deeply involved in various types of Portuguese trade and even in Portuguese political life. One such merchant was Gaspar Pels, who was born in Antwerp and moved to Lisbon in 1554. He and his children traded, but his children eventually gained crown appointments and even achieved knightly honors in Portugal.43 Another Low-Countries merchant was João Filter, who traded in Lisbon between about 1596 and 1643. He did business in Lisbon, Bahia and Angola, owned a ship that traveled to Brazil, and freighted others for Brazil, sometimes with partly Flemish crews. He also had business with the bishop of Bahia and the King, who accorded him trading privileges in the Angolan slave trade.44 Another firm described by Stols in detail is one centered on Pedro (Pieter) Clarisse, much of whose correspondence is preserved for the period of 1605 to 1631. Stemming from an Antwerp merchant family involved partly in trading luxury fabrics from the Low Countries for Brazilian sugar, Pieter arrived in Lisbon in 1605. Initially he served as an apprentice to the Low-Countries merchant, Maximilaan Spanooghe. Afterwards, he served in the Portuguese merchant house of Antonio Rodrigues de Veiga, where he began to invest in a small way in Veiga’s Brazil trade.45 In 1608 and 1609, he was an investor in at least 8 voyages between Portugal and Brazil—all with Portuguese captains—contributing a total of 48,925 reis. Aside from his own business, he obtained capital through credit from his brother Louis in Antwerp as well as other Antwerp merchants involved in the Portuguese trade. He began to make a significant profit by the next decade, gaining 197,665 reis in 1610 from a two-year period of trade. By 1613 he was independent and moved to the Rua das Mudas in Lisbon, and in 1619 he married the daughter of a Portuguese-German merchant family, Marie Goudick. He continued to import sugar from Brazil, mostly to Lisbon, through was an intermediary port of call for Brazilian ships. Not only that, but towards the end of the sixteenth century, merchants shipping Brazilian sugar sometimes trans-shipped their product in Madeira and relabeled it to take advantage of the price premium that accrued to sugar from Madeira during that time: 416–18. 43 Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, Bijlagen, 52. 44 Ibid., Bijlagen, 28. 45 Ibid., 229.

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the 1620s. He counted numerous correspondents in Porto, Brazil and Antwerp.46 Inquisition trial transcripts also attest to the persistence of southern Netherlanders in trade in Portugal, since members of foreign-born houses sometimes ran into problems with the Holy Office for real or imagined adherence to heretical doctrines. One such merchant, João Piper (Pijper), from Limburg, traded with his brothers in Porto in the 1630s, and his trial shows the presence in Porto of a number of Flemish and Portuguese correspondents, including Pedro van Justeren47 and Pedro de Pauthere. Piper, born to Catholic parents near Limburg, moved to Lisbon in 1617 at the age of 13. There he lived with his uncle, Arnas Ferreira, for one year and then with another Flemish merchant, Jeronimo da Vadar, until he was 19. Then, working on commission for other merchants he moved to Hamburg, apparently with the intention of arranging shipments of grain to Portugal. There he married a protestant woman under the condition that he convert to Lutheranism, which he did. The woman died while he was still in the north, but upon his return to Porto around 1635 he ran afoul of the inquisition. Although his economic activities are not reported in detail, he had business relations with the large sugar trader, Balthasar Pels Sinel, himself of mixed Portuguese and Flemish ancestry. Along with his brothers, Arnao and Miguel Piper they traded in Porto at the behest of a Flemish merchant in Lisbon, João Hals, described as “muito rico.”48 Southern Netherlanders were not alone in residing and trading in Portugal. A neglected but fascinating merchant correspondence, transcribed and published a century ago by Uitterdijk, shows the considerable activities of a Dutch merchant company based in Lisbon and trading goods between there, Antwerp, and Dutch and Baltic ports. Gasper Cunertorf and Hans Snel, who resided in Lisbon where Cunertorf had a Portuguese wife, formed this company. Hans Snel—rendered Sinel in Portuguese—was eventually the progenitor of an important Portuguese merchant dynasty and active in the Brazilian

Ibid., 232–7. See also, Bijlagen, 84–91. Probably the same person as Pedro van Husen, mentioned above. 48 IANTT, IL, Processo do João Piper, no. 3269. Balthasar Pels Sinel was descended from the Pels and Snel (Sinel) families described elsewhere in this chapter. 46 47

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sugar trade in the seventeenth century.49 The junior member of this company was Jan Jannsen van Campen who traveled among northern ports arranging shipments to Portugal and disposed of merchandise sent from his partners in Lisbon. All three men were from Kampen in Overijsel, roughly a day’s journey from Amsterdam. Between 1577 and 1582, the years of activity attested in their surviving correspondence, Jan Jannsen traveled variously between Antwerp, Danzig, Enkhuizen, Amsterdam and Kampen, mostly arranging for shipments of grain. Other items sent to the south were ship’s tackle, cloth and clothing, timber and even church bells entering the export market following the iconoclastic fury in the Low Countries, when Calvinist reformers attacked and stripped Catholic churches of their artwork and ornamentation. Return cargoes contained both bulk commodities from Portugal such as wine and salt, but also Portuguese colonial products such as pepper, brazilwood and sugar. The more valuable cargoes most often found an outlet in Antwerp, where the company’s correspondent Adriaan Spelman arranged their re-sale.50 The Kampen company did not neglect to trade in sugar, since they knew from their Antwerp correspondent “that there is demand and profit in it.”51 Nevertheless, for them, sugar meant mainly São Tomé sugar. Of the former they purchased a large quantity in 1577 but feared sending it to the Low Countries because of the state of the rebellion there. In 1578 they did send sugar from São Tomé to Antwerp, although the quantity is not recorded. Later in the same year Snel and Cunertorf shipped 75 crates of “Thomas suickre” to Spelman, one-third for the company, and two-thirds on behalf of another merchant who was to give instructions on its disposal. In 1578 the company also sent to Spelman “4 vaten melassas” from Brazil, “kosten mit alle onkosten 60R454” (60,454 reis), and they sent brazilwood to Spelman in the same year.52

49 His daughter, Catarina, married Baltasar Pels, son of Gaspar Pels. Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, Bijlagen, 52. Baltasar lived and traded in Porto, but he apparently kept up his associations with his Flemish relatives and correspondents. He is mentioned in the inquisition trial of the above-mentioned Limburg-born merchant, João Piper (Pijper), where it was stated that “Balthezar Pelles Sinel,” though born in Lisbon and trading in Porto, had at one point resided in Flanders “por hum pouco de tempo aprender lingua framengo.” IANTT, IL, Processo do João Piper, no. 3269. 50 J. Nanninga Uitterdijk, Een Kamper handelshuis te Lissabon, 1572–1594 (Zwolle: De Erven J.J. Tijl, 1904), I–LXXXIX. 51 “indien wy verstan van Senor Spilman dat dar aftrek end profit op is” Ibid., 26. 52 Ibid., 37, 50, 153–4, 94.

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Otherwise, it is not clear that Snel and Cunertorf bought much Brazilian sugar during this period of their partnership, although its price—mostly in Antwerp—is quoted often in their correspondence. Clearly, though, they witnessed an important growth phase of Brazilian trade. On one occasion they complained that 38 ships ropes and 148 hawsers that they had imported remained in the patio of the Alfândega of Lisbon for six weeks waiting for assessment since the scales were occupied by a great quantity of Brazilian sugar that had arrived apparently all at once.53 The fact that Sinel’s children became major traders in Brazilian sugar shows how a family firm trading in the sugar of the Portuguese African islands could make an easy transition to Brazilian sugar. Presumably many other merchant houses made this lateral move in the waning decades of the sixteenth century. As the activities of the merchants in the Kampen documents attest, the distinction between northern and southern Low Countries merchants was thin.54 The Kampen house operated in a wide geographic orbit. They shipped to Amsterdam, but their large network of correspondents and the many ports they used throughout northern Europe shows that their trade did not follow clear-cut national or ‘ethnic’ pathways.55 Nevertheless, clearly there were Dutch merchants trading sugar from Portugal at an early phase. The activities of the Kampen merchant house in Lisbon before the arrival of the first New Christian merchants in Amsterdam show that it was not only New Christian emigration that prompted Dutch participation in Portuguese ‘rich trades.’ As the sixteenth century progressed, this Dutch involvement in Portuguese trade increased, as shown in the chapters above. In spite of political difficulties, some Dutch merchants made their home in Ibid., 234. Cunertorf often refers to himself and other Low Countries and Hansa merchants as “wy Duytschen.” See for example, Ibid., 314. 55 Other correspondents included: Bonaventura Bodicker who was in Antwerp in 1566 and was practicing business in Danzig by 1572; Johan Cleinhardt who became Consul of the Hansa “nation” in Lisbon in 1579; Adrian Cornelissen Cuper, a merchant in Armuiden in Zeeland; João Felipe Denís, Portuguese merchant in Antwerp; Luís Fernandes, Portuguese merchant in Antwerp; Gillis de Greve, Antwerp merchant who migrated to Hamburg; Gabriel de Haze, merchant in Antwerp; Gillis Hofman (or van Eyckelberg), merchant in Antwerp; Hans Huisman, Hansa merchant in Antwerp; Cornelis Loeffsen who had previously employed Cunretorf in Amsterdam and traded later in Danzig; Pieter van den Moere, merchant in Antwerp; Adriaan Pauw, merchant from Amsterdam also active in Emden and Hamburg; Johan van Pelcken, factor of Danzig merchants in Lisbon in 1569 and later; Andries Stever, merchant in Danzig. Ibid., CX–CXIV. 53 54

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Portugal. Even during periods of embargo, when merchants from or with connections to the Dutch Republic were officially banned, they persisted in Portugal and were active in the sugar trade. Two such people were Cipriaan Joosten Baack and Floris den Otter, resident in Viana. In 1621 they freighted a ship to Pernambuco, probably the Anjo Gabriel, captained by Damian de Barros from Viana. There the Dutch merchants arranged through correspondents for the sale of various merchandise in exchange for sugar: 13 crates (three white and ten moscovado) on their behalf and five more consigned to two other Portuguese merchants from Viana, Francisco Manuel Consuentia and Joao Álvares. Baack and den Otter did business with their relatives Hillebrant den Otter and Laurens Joosten Baack in Amsterdam.56 In a notarial record, three merchants from Amsterdam and one “suikerbakker,” or sugar refiner, testified that they had stayed with den Otter in Viana, where they had helped him arrange cargoes of merchandise to go to Brazil, to be traded for sugar.57 The presence of foreign merchants in Portugal is well attested, and like den Otter and Baack, merchants could always trade in Brazil through Portuguese correspondents. Evidence for the presence of foreigners in Brazil itself is somewhat more ambiguous, especially after 1605 when the royal ban went into effect. However, in the sixteenth century, foreign involvement in the Brazilian sugar trade clearly led to a significant presence in Brazil of non-Portuguese merchants, especially those from the Low Countries. These investors were faced with the same problems as others in Brazil: whether to focus on trade or cultivation. Each offered attendant risks. Leaving a plantation to factors could result in loss from fraud or mismanagement, as happened to Erasmus Schetz, an early Brazilian mill owner based in Antwerp.58 One of the first engenhos in São Vicente was erected in the 1530s with capital provided by Jan van Hilst in Lisbon. Later van Hilst owned it outright with his sons. The Dutchman Willem Joost ten Glommer took part in a mining expedition into the interior of Brazil in the sixteenth century. Low countries entrepreneurs from Antwerp to Utrecht owned GAA, NA, no. 645, 1551–1552. GAA, NA, no. 747, 125–126. They were Hans Nijs, Gijsbrecht Janssen van Herdenberch, Carel Wanter and Gerrit Stuyver. The latter, 19 years old in February of 1622, lived with van Otter for two years between 1619 and 1621. 58 Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 104. Schetz was a factor in Antwerp’s Lisbon factory. He purchased an engenho in São Vicente sometime before 1550 and left it to his children. Also see: Stols, Os Mercadores Flamengos, 12–13, 20–27. 56

57

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or operated farms, engenhos, and traded in every part of the Brazilian coast. These included the Olanda family from Utrecht, early planters in Pernambuco; Baltasar Volarte, farmer in Porto Calvo; the Brabanter Pedro de la Ost, landowner in Santo Agostinho, and others. Another big group of Low Countries merchants settled in Salvador and included Alberto Framengo, João Adrião, João Poré Montafaux, Guilherme Martins Pompejo, João Fernades and Julio van den Moere.59 One prominent family, the Hulscher, was especially active in Brazil in the last part of the sixteenth century. Duarte Osquer and Manuel van Dale of the Hulscher family were based in Salvador. Duarte Osquer had four brothers who comprised a network that simultaneously spanned a vast trade route: João Hulscher in Lisbon, Adam in Hamburg, Hendrik in Antwerp and Guilherme “Holsquer” in Olinda. He also had a ship that traveled to Buenos Aires and Córdoba and an engenho on the island of Itaparica in Salvador.60 The Hulscher brothers apparently worked closely together, employed Dutch shipping and counted both Portuguese and Low Countries merchants as correspondents. In 1590 Adam Hulscher freighted an Amsterdam-based ship—with Claes Claessen as captain—in Hamburg with the intention of an eventual trip to Brazil. He was to sail to Lisbon and receive orders there about the trans-Atlantic leg of his journey, presumably from Adam’s brother, João. The aborted journey was described to a notary at the behest of an Amsterdam merchant, Pieter Lucas, a correspondent of Hendrik Hulscher in Antwerp.61 In 1594 they conveyed before a notary to Hans de Schot—another Brazil trader—978 quintalen of brazilwood from Rio de Janeiro that had arrived on the ship of Andries Hoppenhaer in Hamburg and was in the hands of de Schot’s brother-in-law, Francisco Salvator. They also conveyed goods from the Canary Islands that had been freighted by João Hulscher or Thomas van de Walle in a ship captained by Lucas Cornelsz; and they also sent goods that had been freighted in Brazil by Duarte Hulscher in Nosse Senhora de Vitoria, captained by Claes van Vosdonck, and den Sampson, captained by Pauwels Geertsz.62 The geographical dispersion 59 Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 100–4. A Pieter Jansz, probably from Amsterdam, sent a shipment of sugar with a ship from Enkhuizen from Brazil around 1591. GAA, NA, no. 8, 121. 60 Ibid., 104. 61 GAA, NA, no. 42, 84V. 62 GAA, NA, no. 47, 6. There is no explicit indication that these ships did not follow the prescribed journeys through Lisbon, and it seems most probable that Joao Hulscher

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of these brothers surely offered them great advantages in coordinating long-distance trade involving numerous ports of call, including Brazil. Their network of correspondents and their shipping resources were utterly cosmopolitan. For merchants without family members residing in strategic ports of call, correspondents could facilitate Brazilian trade. Hans de Schot, mentioned above, resided in Amsterdam where he arranged shipping for Brazilian residents from the Low Countries. Several freight contracts show the pattern of his trading, which involved ships and captains from Holland. The contracts were generally loosely prescriptive, and envisioned ports of call respectively in Portugal, the southern Iberian coast, Africa, Madeira or the Canary Islands, Brazil, Portugal and then Holland. The correspondents in these places are not specified, although in one contract the presence of a “super cargo” on board is indicated. De Schot clearly intended to maximize his profits with trading based on information received on the spot in Portugal and elsewhere. His activities were closely integrated with foreign merchant houses resident in Brazil.63 Vast geographic networks, like that formed by the Hulscher family, became more problematic later on. After 1598, the Habsburg crown meant to create a clear distinction between merchants from the ‘obedient’ and ‘rebellious’ provinces, the latter of which were neither to trade nor reside in Portugal or its colonies. However, the close integration and mobility of merchants from various regions characterized the Brazilian sugar trade from the beginning. These qualities allowed merchants from Holland to keep their trade with Brazil going during embargoes. One merchant company formed in 1600 showed the possibilities clearly. The company comprised three major investors: Cornelis Snellinck in Amsterdam, Hieronymus de Vader in Lisbon and the Antwerp merchant Gasper Basiliers de Jonge. The latter was required to travel to Bahia coordinated activity from there. Several of the ships indicated had both Portuguese names and Dutch captains, so it is possible that there was some attempt to conceal the national origins of the ships and captains. 63 GAA, NA, no. 47, 96V; no. 48, 21; One contract, from 1598, specifies a journey from Amsterdam to Danzig to load grain to be shipped to Masagan. From there wine was to be loaded in the Canaries or Madeira to be taken to Pernambuco where another cargo, to include brazilwood, would be returned to Portugal. Ibid., no. 50, 39V. Hans de Schot had business dealings with the Hulscher brothers again in 1595–1597 regarding a shipment of sugar from Duarte Hulscher. GAA, NA no. 52, 101V. Presumably other investors stood behind him in these freight contracts. For other activities of de Schot see: GAA, NA, no. 32, 340; no. 49, 271; no. 51, 79.

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for five years, which was the intended duration of the company. Behind these three major investors, who contributed 4,000 guilders (581,818 reis) to the company, stood seven smaller investors from Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp, each contributing 1,000 guilders.64 Basiliers, more of a partner than a factor, was also to receive 8% commission on export sales from Brazil and 5% on imports. They probably assumed that if the face of the company comprised Catholic Low Countries merchants in Portugal and Brazil, they would not meet with the opposition of crown officials who would be unaware that they operated on mostly Dutch capital. It is not known how this company fared, but one of the investors—Snellinck—appears in Amsterdam’s notarial records throughout the decade in transactions involving Brazil. In 1604 he received from Manuel Rodrigo Veiga—one of the first Portuguese New Christians to take up residence in Amsterdam—262 pounds Flemish to establish himself as a partner in a voyage to Brazil and Angola. The captains were Barent Sas and Hendrick Gijsbertsz. In 1604, a ship of which he was part owner, t’Fortuyn, was seized at sea on a trip between Brazil and Portugal. In 1605 he was involved in a dispute with a ship’s captain and its owners over costs related to a voyage that he had freighted to Brazil. In 1606 he received a summons from a notary to settle an account over another cargo sent to Brazil, in this case with a Portuguese correspondent, Raphael Fernandes, based in Antwerp. In the same year, one of the Dutch admiralties seized a ship in whose Brazilian cargo he had invested.65 He appears to have retired from the Brazil trade sometime in the middle of this decade.66 Snellinck ran risks in a period during which both Dutch and Portuguese authorities could threaten Dutch vessels traveling to Brazil, but he persisted in trading. He was able to do so because of his far-flung and cosmopolitan network of correspondents.

64 Antwerp: Vincent van Hove; Rotterdam: Hendrick Uylkens; Amsterdam: Willem Willemsz, Willem Aertsz Organist, Hillebrant den Otter, Marten Papenbroeck and Jacques de Meijere. GAA, NA, no. 33, 390V–392. Snellinck was originally from Antwerp and had a Portuguese wife from there. Koen, “Notarial Records,” 2, no. 2 (1968): 259. 65 GAA, NA, no. 98, 21V; no. 196, 91V; no. 35, 254–254V; no. 104, 61V; no. 195, 56V. 66 He claimed in 1617 to have been active as a freighter for Brazil fifteen years previously. GAA, NA, no. 645, 43V–44.

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At a certain point, having a Portuguese correspondent probably became a sine qua non for doing business in Brazil, because for a nonPortuguese merchant to actually reside in Brazil after the Alvará of 1605 was increasingly difficult. Nevertheless, it seems that at least some Low Countries merchants still managed to live in Brazil. In 1612 Joris Adriaensz deposed to a notary in Amsterdam that he had lived in Brazil for eighteen years. At the same time Pieter Beltgens claimed that he had been there for six years. However, they did not indicate when their residency had ceased.67 When they and some other Amsterdam merchants were asked again in 1617 to testify regarding norms for weights of sugar crates in Brazil, no Dutchman younger than 42 claimed to have lived in Brazil. Probably, by this time, the efforts of the Habsburg crown to drive foreigners out of the colony had begun to bear fruit.68 A Brazilian document from 1618 entitled Memorial of all foreigners living in the captaincies of Rio Grande, Paraíba, Itamaracá and Pernambuco, and Bahia of whom there may be no suspicion lists only 17 ‘authorized’ foreigners, most of whom by then had been long-time residents in Brazil.69 The examples of merchants and merchant organization discussed above give only a small sampling of the large merchant networks that spanned the Atlantic and spread across the Atlantic coast of Europe. Nevertheless, they lead to some unmistakable conclusions about the nature of merchant organization in the sugar trade. While family-based merchant houses and ‘ethnic’ communities of merchants remained relevant, the trade overall had a strong inter-imperial character. Merchant networks that traded Brazilian sugar had become atomistic and dynamic. Their geographic and ethnic dispersion, in particular, was extremely noteworthy. Sugar networks encompassed Brazil, the Atlantic Islands, Portuguese port towns, and a variety of trading towns in the northwestern part of Europe. Contrary to what has sometimes been assumed, the Brazilian sugar trade was not exclusively the preserve of New Christians, nor even an exclusive Portuguese undertaking in general. Without a doubt, New Christians were a formidable element in towns such as Antwerp and Amsterdam, but they did not monopolize Brazilian trade. Demand for and profit from sugar drew many foreigners

67 68 69

GAA, NA, no. 197, 173–174. GAA, NA, no. 645, 43V–44. Livro Primeiro do Governo do Brasil, 1607–1633, 183–5.

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from northern Europe to Portuguese towns, and in the early decades of the trade to Brazil itself. One result of the dynamism of sugar trading networks was to allow the trade to persist through periods of political interference. When Habsburg embargoes forbade the shipment of sugar to towns in the Dutch Republic, merchants in those towns could continue to import indirectly through their correspondents in Germany or Antwerp. Likewise, the closing of Brazil to all foreigners in 1605 led to a sharp decrease of Low Countries residents living there, but they continued their trade from Portugal, employing Portuguese correspondents in the colony. In the context of Spain’s long struggle with the Dutch Republic, merchants were nimble and ready to do business in new towns, when political circumstances dictated it. The result was to ensure the continuity of Brazilian sugar shipments to northern European markets.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE COST OF SHIPPING Buying cheap in one place and selling dear in another was the inviolable principle of merchant activity, then as today. However, many variables affected the ability to trade and to gain. When a merchant considered trading along a particular route, he was—in part—limited by the extent of his commercial contacts. Beyond this, merchants relied on the availability of shipping and infrastructure in various ports that would make their trading possible. These imposed obvious transaction costs and were an important calculation in their trade.1 This chapter considers transaction costs in the trade in Brazilian sugar and treats three main themes. The first is the port system and the ports themselves, since their size and efficiency affected the speed with which sugar could be delivered to markets. The second is the operating costs of shipping, which was one of the main expenses for merchants. These costs were mainly conditioned by the types of vessels used and the lengths of voyages. Finally, the chapter examines the ownership and supply of shipping, since the supply of ships contributed to the cost of transportation in general. Specifically for the Brazilian sugar trade, the demand for ships in the empire probably exceeded domestic supply. The chapter concludes by showing how foreign-built ships entered the Portuguese merchant marine and examines the patterns of ownership that made this possible. The originality of this chapter—which otherwise owes a great debt to the monumental work of Leonor Costa—lies precisely in this latter conclusion. By extending the scope of her study to Dutch archives I have been able to modify her conclusions to show important trans-imperial integration even in the area of shipping.

1 For a theoretical framework on transaction costs, see: Douglass C. North, “Institutions, Transaction Costs, and the Rise of Merchant Empires,” in The Political Economy of Merchant Empires, ed. James D. Tracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Russell M. Mennard, “Transport costs and long-range trade, 1300–1800: Was there a European ‘transport revolution’ in the early modern era?,” in The Political Economy of Merchant Empires, ed. James D. Tracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

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The working of the port system, the cost of shipping and the cost of ships were indispensable pieces of knowledge to merchants in the early modern period. Along with information about prices in different places, this enabled them to adopt profit-making strategies. These concerns were reflected when they contracted with a captain to carry freight. Contracts varied somewhat in style from place to place, but their basic elements were the same. A merchant-freighter agreed to pay a captain to deliver goods to one place and—usually—to return with others. These were to be delivered within a set period of time, and therefore envisioned a maximum turnover time in port. Contracts also accounted for related incidental expenses, such as tolls. In the event of disputes, they also allowed for systems of adjudicating conflicts, usually stipulating that they be judged by a group of respected merchants who were not interested in the transaction. Unfortunately for historians, most shipping arrangements transacted between 1550 and 1630 were by mutual verbal agreement between parties who knew each other. Merchants hired a notary in only a minority of cases, and probably usually in a climate of uncertainty or distrust. It is impossible to know with precision how representative are the data from freight contracts.2 Also, freight prices could fluctuate widely, even in the short term. But, although their use for quantifying trade is limited, freight contracts remain the best source for indicating patterns of trade and also for showing cost, which is at least loosely indicated in the freight price. They may also indicate changes in shipping costs over time. A salient feature of the Brazilian sugar trade was that it was decentralized and operated out of many ports both in the colony and in Europe. In Portugal, the trade’s growth offered new opportunities for the kingdom’s northern and smaller harbors, including Porto and Viana. These had been shut out of the trade routes between Portugal and Asia but were allowed to trade with Brazil. They were already well connected with international markets, and furthermore, the wine estates of their hinterland—Entre Minho e Douro—offered a readily negotiable commodity for Brazilian markets. Along with Lisbon, these harbors contributed to the supply of shipping available to merchants.

2 For a general discussion on Dutch freight contracts see: Winkelman, ed., Bronnen voor de Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Oostzeehandel, 2:VIII–XIII. For the Portuguese freight contracts Leonor Costa is excellent: Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:23–26, 250–72.

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With three major harbors at their disposal in Portugal, merchants on the sugar trade were allowed a fair amount of flexibility in deciding how to move cargoes in the metropolis (See Appendix A). While it is impossible to say for certain how much sugar went to which port, there seems little doubt that Lisbon received the most. One reason was that it had invested in new port infrastructure. The increase in trade in Brazil may have caused congestion in the Alfândega in its initial phases, but by the end of the century, unloading appeared to go smoothly.3 Two Dutch merchants who had shipped sugar through Lisbon via São Tomé and Brazil in the late 1590s said that sugar, once arrived in Lisbon, was unloaded in the Alfândega within just a few days. The total turnover time in Lisbon for unloading and loading a new cargo did not exceed three weeks, the merchants claimed with approval.4 In fact, the period of 1580 to 1605 marked a major expansion and improvement in Lisbon’s port infrastructure. Lisbon’s wharfs boasted an abundance of warehouses and lighters for unloading and loading cargoes, and a new customs house completed in 1605.5 It is not always clear why merchants chose one port over the other to ship cargoes, but they must have been mindful of costs when they decided. The presence of pre-existing merchant networks probably conditioned most decisions. However, when merchants had correspondents in a variety of port towns and could choose, they no doubt weighed cost factors as well. For instance, Lisbon’s port was acknowledged to charge the most taxes on sugar, but its larger size meant that there was readier access to credit, insurance markets and shipping for re-export to other European ports. This allowed merchants to turn over cargoes more rapidly. Viana charged the least taxes on sugar, but its harbor was silted and the turnaround time must have been substantially longer since ships had to anchor further away from the docks. Merchants also considered the turnaround time in Brazilian harbors, although this was probably a minor factor in their shipping decisions. As in Portugal, turnaround speed depended on the port infrastructure. Here the important thing was the centralization of sugar and other

3 As in once in the late 1570s, when a large arrival of sugar from Brazil tied up the Alfândega for weeks. Uitterdijk, Een Kamper Handelshuis, 234. 4 GAA, NA, no. 197, 84. This was the testimony of Cornelis Cornelissen Dogger and Joris Adriaensz in 1611 in Amsterdam. They claimed to have been active in the Brazilian sugar trade thirteen years prior. 5 Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:37.

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merchandise in warehouses close to the wharf and the presence of smaller vessels for loading and unloading ships out in the harbor. Little direct evidence shows how much time ships spent in Brazilian ports, but the maximum turnaround times that are stipulated in freight contracts are a useful guide, since they were likely formulated around merchants’ real experiences. Pernambuco offered the fastest turnaround time, with Bahia coming in second and Rio de Janeiro third. Based on the freight contracts that mention time in harbor, the average turnaround in these ports before 1630 was respectively 56, 60 and 69 days.6 Contracts usually directed one- to three-months’ time for loading, but after 1624, when the WIC menaced Brazilian harbors, freighters looked for a much faster turnaround in Brazil, hoping to minimize their exposure to marauding Dutch warships.7 Although merchants were concerned with the turnaround time of the ships that they sent to Brazil, their decisions about which ports to visit were probably ultimately based on supply of the commodity. The most ships went to the largest areas of production (see Figure 5.1). On the trade routes between Portugal and northwestern Europe it also seems unlikely that port size and infrastructure played the main role in decisions about where to ship sugar. There were many other factors for merchants to consider, such as weather and political circumstances. In comparison to shipping between Portugal, Brazil and the Atlantic Islands—which could operate more-or-less year-round—harbors and sea-lanes north of Zeeland could fill with ice and be unavailable for shipping during the winter and early spring. Merchants also took into account the possibility that hostile officials might confiscate their cargoes in certain ports, or that privateers or pirates might claim them en route. The turnover time in port was important to a merchant because he had to pay operating costs for a ship every day until a cargo was completely loaded and unloaded. These costs, in turn, were determined by the size and type of ship. Larger ships were more expensive to operate— in absolute terms—than smaller ones. However, many other factors determined the costs of shipping, including the exigencies of defense in dangerous waters. All of these costs, including ordinary expenses—such as labor and victuals—figured in the total shipping costs for merchants.

6 7

Ibid., 329–338. Ibid., 341.

Number of Mentions

the cost of shipping

89

120 100 80 60 40 20 0

Rio de Janeiro Espírito Santo Bahia Pernambuco 1580– 1589

1590– 1599

1600– 1609

1610– 1619

1620– 1629

Decade

Figure 5.1

Lisbon and Porto notarial contracts mentioning Brazilian ports of call

Source: Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 2:191–216.

There are very few surviving documents that break down these expenses, but the total costs probably find a fair reflection in the freight charges that merchants paid to move cargoes (see Figure 5.1). Operating costs on sugar voyages could vary widely because there was no standard type of vessel used. Normally, in early modern shipping practices, the ratio of value to bulk of a particular commodity played a large role in determining the type of vessel that would transport it. In a climate of naval warfare and near constant threat from pirates and privateers, trade items with a high value-to-bulk ratio were typically transported in large and well-armed ships, since their sales value justified the extra expenses that large ships entailed.8 These larger ships were typical on routes that served the ‘rich trades,’ especially the circuits connecting Europe and Asia. As an item of transportation, sugar fell into an intermediary category, with a value-to-bulk ratio that probably stood somewhere between that of high-value commodities such as pepper and low-value commodities, such as salt. It is not surprising, then, that sugar was transported from Brazil on vessels ranging from the very small to the very large. Shipping practices responded to a variety of variables beyond the desire to observe economies of scale.9

8 Large ships were obviously more expensive to run, although they could achieve a certain economy of scale, since the staffing requirements of large ships did not increase proportionally to the increasing tonnage of a ship. Ibid., 350. 9 The question of how to protect these vessels was hotly debated between merchants and crown officials, who all wished to protect the sugar trade but disagreed about the best way to go about it. This thesis does not attempt to explore these debates in detail, since they are written about fairly extensively. In particular see the work of Costa,

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Although ship sizes on the sugar routes could vary quite dramatically, contemporary descriptions of ships were often imprecise, and freight contracts rarely specified the exact tonnage of a ship. Portuguese sources describe vessels as naus, navios (boat), caravelas, urcas (hulks) and patachos. Although their construction could vary, one of the major distinctions among them was their size. Costa has located the main threshold at about 130 tons. Below this number, ships were generally described as patachos, navios and, most commonly, caravels. These could be as modest as 35 tons, although a range of 60 to 80 tons may have been most common. Larger ships were generally described as naus, and they may have ranged from 130 to 350 tons.10 Hulks (urcas) were similar in size to naus but these were northern European ships averaging 200 to 300 tons. They were constructed for the Baltic trade in bulk goods, especially grain. Compared to naus they were slow and flat-bottomed, which were necessary qualities for shallower Baltic harbors. Their size meant that they might have been frequently underutilized when employed on Brazilian routes, since the goods traded on these routes were somewhat less bulky than the commodities they had been designed to carry.11 Brazilian sugar has often been associated in the scholarly literature with transportation in caravels. Leonor Costa has challenged that notion, demonstrating that merchants’ preferences for smaller or larger vessels were determined both by supply and their perceptions of risk at sea.12 Speaking only about the primary routes of distribution, she has presented a schema in which, in the earliest phases of Brazilian production, transportation was arranged mainly in small ships, navios or caravels. English privateers wrought devastation on the Portuguese merchant marine—especially smaller, poorly armed vessels—in Atlantic waters by in the last decades of the sixteenth century. This led merchants to take advantage of larger vessels supplied in the Low Countries and in the northern German ports of Lübeck and Hamburg. These urcas played an important rule until about 1605, when, as a result of abuses, foreign shipping was banned from Brazil.13 Subsequently, the caravel once again dominated in Brazilian waters. But in the second cited frequently above, and Evaldo Cabral de Mello, Olinda restaurada: guerra e açúcar no Nordeste, 1630–1654 (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Forense-Universitária, 1975). 10 Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:180–186. 11 Ibid., 1:185–7. 12 Ibid., 1:190–201. 13 Costa sees the end of transportation in Hansa hulks in 1601, but these continued for at least a few more years (See Chapter 3).

the cost of shipping Years

Ships probably under Ships probably over 130 130 tons: navios, tons: naus patachos, caravelas

1580–89 1590–99 1600–09 1610–19 1620–29

12 35 79 53 50

Table 5.1

91 Other ships mentioned

7 6

1

18 60

1 1

Ship types mentioned in the Lisbon and Porto notarial archives according to tonnage

Source: Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 2:167–78. From 1615 to 1623 only nine caravels are named in contracts.

decade of the century, with an increased threat of piracy based in the Barbary Coast, merchants looked again to larger vessels that might defend themselves more easily than caravels. At this juncture the nau made a stronger showing in the Brazil fleet, as Table 5.1 clearly shows. Then, after the renewal of hostilities between the Iberian crown and the Dutch Republic, and the establishment of the WIC, the equation changed once more. Naus might have been able to fight off the small vessels of the Barbary pirates, but they were no matches for the wellarmed war ships of the WIC. By the time of the capture of Bahia, many merchants decided to trust their fortunes once again to caravels, hoping that they might outrun the well-armed Dutch fleet.14 In the redistribution of sugar from Portugal to European northern harbors it seems almost certain that larger ships—naus or hulks—were the rule. This route was dominated by traffic in commodities that were distinguished by a low ratio of value to bulk. Larger ships carried the commerce in grain and salt, so larger ships were a much more common type in northern fleets. In the case of Dutch shipping, between 1591 and 1602 alone, 773 notarial contracts from Amsterdam showed trade linking the Baltic region and Portugal in the same voyage. Most of these involved ships between 100 and 200 tons, that is to say: medium-large ships.15 By 1600, the famous fluit—flute or flyboat—was well established

14 Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:190–201. These arguments are developed at some length in diverse parts of her work, but for a summary, see: 1:605–7. 15 IJzerman, ed., Amsterdamsche bevrachtingscontracten, 163–291. Unlike the freight contracts drawn in Lisbon and Porto, Amsterdam freight contracts invariably mention the tonnage of the vessel, given in lasts. 1 last = 2 tons. Winkelman suggests that these

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in the Dutch merchant marine. By 1619 an Amsterdam merchant claimed that this type of boat had already been used on the southern routes for 20 years.16 Besides the fluit, Dutch ships available for journeys to Portugal would have included the retourschip, katschip, hekboort, bootschip, boeier, heude, galjoot, and hoeker. This is an elaborate typology, reflecting an elaborated shipbuilding industry, but in practice the major difference would have been between smaller and larger ships. The latter would typically have two decks. The lower was the overloop; the one above was the verdek, bovenste overloop or boevennet. Some ships had an extra deck, know as the koebrug.17 During the Twelve Year Truce it appeared that Dutch ships visiting Portuguese harbors were larger still. As Table 5.2 demonstrates, the majority were over 200 tons. Some in that year were as large as 320 tons.18 Under 50 lasts (100 tons) Number of Ships Table 5.2

1

50–100 lasts (100–200 tons) 21

100–150 lasts Over 150 lasts (200–300 tons) (300 tons) 59

4

Amsterdam freight contracts for the Baltic trade: Ships intending to visit Portugal in 1618

Source: Winkelman, ed. Bronnen voor de Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Oostzeehandel, vol. 6.

The levels of staffing required for these ships varied with their size. Here as well there are significant differences between the Portuguese fleets on the routes between Brazil and Portugal, and the Dutch ships carrying cargoes from Portugal to the north. The evidence for numbers

tonnages are reliable, since both parties in the contracts would have had an interest in establishing the size of the ship. P.H. Winkelman, ed., Bronnen voor de geschiedenis van de Nederlandse oostzeehandel in de zeventiende eeuw, 6 vols., RGP, grote ser. no. 133, 184, 165, 186, 178, 186 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1971–83), 2:XX–XXI. 16 Koen, “Notarial Records,” 14, no. 1 (1980): 82. 17 Winkelman, ed., Bronnen voor de Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Oostzeehandel, 2:XX. 18 Ibid., vol. 6, 177. Again, the vast majority of these vessels were contracted to lower-value bulk commodities, of which salt was the most important. However, some of these ships may have moved sugar as well, though it is rarely mentioned in these freight contracts. See also: Richard W. Unger, Dutch Shipbuilding before 1800 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1978), 32–40.

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of crew remains somewhat spotty, but Costa has calculated—at least for the Portugal-Brazil route—a common rate of about five tons per man (5t/m). According to Costa, larger vessels might have been able to enjoy an increased ratio of t/m, but she doubts that on the Brazil routes that this would often have been the case. This was different from the Carreira da Índia, in which very large vessels predominated and some economy of scale could be observed.19 Very little evidence survives to support Costa’s estimates. However, she has found detailed accounting for one actual voyage of a vessel of 200 tons traveling from Portugal to Brazil. This had a total crew of 28 including a captain (mestre-capitão) and a boatswain (contramestre), a pilot, a steward (despensiero), two gunners, eight sailors, six cabin boys (grumetes), four swabbers ( pajens) and four servants (moços). This implied a ratio of about 7t/m, which would be expected with such a large vessel.20 Smaller ships, such as caravels, undoubtedly were less economical in their operating costs, even if they had other advantages. A few Dutch sources describing trips to Brazil also mention the manpower aboard ships on trips to Brazil in the years before 1600. These were larger than typical Portuguese ships and had a more favorable ratio of tonnage to men. This may have been in keeping with Dutch ships in general, since they had won their leading place in global shipping by building large vessels that were easily manned. Table 5.3 tends to confirm this, and also supports the belief that larger vessels did enjoy an economy of scale, even on Brazilian routes. However these ships may have had unusually large staffs by Dutch standards, considering that they were probably armed to a greater degree than usual. On other European routes, Dutch vessels were lightly manned and sailed in convoy, accompanied by warships. When the oceans were relatively peaceful, no other merchant marine could compete with the Dutch in manpower savings.

19 20

Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:348–9. Ibid., 1:356–7.

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Ship

Date

Lasts

Manpower

t/m

Blaeuwe Duijff

1595 1595

St Pieters Pynas

1595

Eenhoorn

1596

18 men 2 boys 26 men 2 boys 19 men 2 boys 25 men 2 boys

9t/m

Den gulden Leeuw

90 (180 tons) 150 (300 tons) 125 (250 tons) 135 (270 tons)

Table 5.3

10.7t/m 11.9t/m 10t/m

Freight contracts from the Amsterdam notarial archives for trips to Brazil: tonnage and manpower

Source: GAA, NA, no. 32, 176; no. 47, 96V; no. 48, 21; no. 50, 39V.

The low operating costs of Dutch ships also shows in the fact that Dutch ships plying the routes between the Baltic Sea and Portugal sometimes were prepared to travel considerable distances just on ballast. Trips from Portugal to northern harbors were relatively short: probably around one to two months.21 Given these short routes, and attendant reduced costs, it is not surprising to find that many merchants and ship owners found it profitable to make some legs of their voyages carrying no freight at all.22 This shows that, at least during the Truce, large Dutch ships could travel at a significant level of underutilization and still make a profit. In times of war, some of the Dutch advantages were diminished. When the Dunkirk privateers renewed their attacks on the merchant marine of the Dutch Republic in the 1620s, the cost of Dutch shipping rose.23 The size of a ship’s crew had important repercussions for merchantfreighters, since crews needed to be paid and fed. Costa has suggested that these costs remained stable for the period described here, and that they were in keeping with European norms. For voyages to Brazil, the 21 Uitterdijk, Een Kamper Handelshuis, LXXXVI–LXXXVII. This was already the case in 1578, where two sea journeys from Lisbon to Amsterdam lasted respectively 27 and 59 days. 22 IJzerman, ed., Amsterdamsche bevrachtingscontracten, 290–1. See also numerous examples in Winkelman, ed., Bronnen voor de Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Oostzeehandel. Pace Israel, this was not a phenomenon from only the period before 1590. Instead, as the freight contract data from the 1610s shows, many Dutch ships sailed to Portugal on ballast to collect salt, or sailed to the Baltic on ballast to collect grain, with Portugal as the eventual destination. Israel, Dutch Primacy, 49. 23 Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 299–303. For prizes taken by Dunkirk privateers see: Ibid., Bijlagen, 171–6.

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diet comprised biscuit, wine, dried meats and fish, olive oil, vinegar, water and vegetables. Constituting about 4,000 calories, this diet would have cost about 50–60 reis per person per day, or—for a total crew of ten to twelve on a caravel—between 500 and 700 reis per day. Freight contracts frequently stipulated daily charges for delays in getting merchandise on board. And in the case of caravels—with crews typically in the range of ten to twelve men—these were most often calculated at 1,000 reis per day, which confirms the plausibility of her estimates.24 The compensation of crews beyond their daily rations is an altogether more complex problem, not least because of an almost complete lack of account books from captains of ships from this period. Probably there were different methods of payment, but a few seem likely. For one, payment almost certainly followed a hierarchy, with valuable crew members such as the pilot receiving more than cabin boys. In the case analyzed by Costa—comprising a nau and a crew of 28—compensation for most of the crew was based on the division of the freight charges after the completion of the voyage. In this case, after operating expenses were subtracted, the remaining money was divided into 21 partidas, or portions. Each sailor received one partida, for example, while the grumetes received half each. On top of this, the most valuable staff—pilot, captain, steward and boatswain—received a salary. If this type of compensation was common—which remains entirely uncertain—the crew’s interests would have been allied with those of the freighters in maximizing profit through reducing turnover time in port.25 Additional expenses on voyages had to do with miscellaneous tolls and customs paid in various ports of call and which fell under the category of avarias. These were generally considered to be a relatively small part of the total operating costs of a voyage. Captains generally collected the costs of avarias separately from merchants alongside freight charges.26 Altogether, the daily operating costs of Portuguese shipping probably usually fell into a range between 2,000 and 4,000 reis. Costa believes the penalty charges for delays in loading that were sometimes stipulated in freight contracts, although imprecise, offer a reasonable guide to the cost of the crew, including food and pay. If so, this gives a close

24 25 26

Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:352–4. Ibid., 1:357–9. Ibid., 1:372–3.

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approximation of the daily cost of running a ship. Nevertheless, it is not entirely clear how much these costs varied over time. As with freight charges, they may have been susceptible to short-term fluctuations.27 From the few records she has found where these types of penalties have been mentioned, it seems that, at least that from 1609 to 1628, daily operating costs for caravels were not usually estimated above 2,000 reis. In the case of naus or larger navios, they were probably typically around 4,000. Of course, as she observes, these estimates merely formed the basis of contracts, and in reality, captains, who were required to pay expenses from the freight charges they garnered, might have tried to cut their costs and increase their profit by reducing crew sizes to a bare minimum.28 The daily operating costs, multiplied by the number of days on a voyage, determined the bulk of the costs of transportation. Therefore, along with loading time in a harbor, the length of a journey was an important variable in determining costs. Part of this equation, of course, was beyond the control of merchants, who had no influence over climatological vagaries. Nevertheless, by the beginning of the Brazilian sugar trade, Atlantic sailing had become routine, and people could make fairly safe assumptions about the maximum and minimum sailing times between different Atlantic destinations. Contemporary observers placed the sailing time from Portugal to northeastern Brazil at 50 to 60 days and the return trip at 90 to 100 days.29 Needless to say, individual voyages could be either longer or shorter than these roughly calculated averages. A practice that further lengthened travel to and from Brazil was stopping to trade at the Atlantic islands, especially the Canaries and Madeira.30 This may have increased the overall operating costs of a trip to Brazil, but it also potentially increased profits, since merchants traded goods at every port of call. This type of voyage was a common pattern both for Portuguese vessels, as well as those of foreigners before 1605 (see Appendix A). When vessels visited the Atlantic islands, and when time in port in Brazil was calculated, the round trip voyage to and from the kingdom could occupy the better part of a year. It seems unlikely,

27 28 29 30

Koen, “Notarial Records,” 13, no. 2 (1979): 239. Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:354, 359. Ibid., 1:344–6. Ibid., 2:191–216.

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then, that ships frequently made more than one round trip journey in a year, although, this would have been theoretically possible. The operating costs for ships described above constituted part of the freight charges paid by merchants to move merchandise from one place to the other. Also, through freight charges, merchants indirectly paid the purchase price of ships themselves. Consequently, the supply of shipping and the purchase costs of ships had a direct result on merchants’ expenses. This invites an investigation of ship ownership and the market for ships in general. There is good evidence for ship ownership in freight contracts, but the evidence for the capital value of ships themselves is scant and problematic. Where the value of a ship is quoted in the available sources—contracts or other types of documents—it is not always given with an indication of the size, age or condition of the vessel. Any comparative price analysis must be taken with caution. A further complication to understanding how the price of ships affected merchants was the fact that they were often both customers and suppliers. The act of carrying cargo implied an expense for a merchant and income for the ships’ owners. In fact, merchants who bought the freighting services of a ship were also often ship-owners themselves, and they sometimes freighted their own ships. Furthermore, captains, freighters and ship-owners engaged in complicated types of transactions—such as bottomry contracts—in which the ship itself served as security on the value of a cargo, a transaction described in the following chapter. If merchants were also usually ship owners, it is useful to ask why they didn’t habitually freight cargoes in their own ships, thereby vertically integrating their operations and saving on freight charges. In fact, merchants rarely did so because of the structure of ship ownership, which will be described below. Costa has shown that merchants treated ship owning and freighting as distinct economic activities, even if in practice the distinctions were sometimes blurred.31 Prices for ships, then, were an indirect—though important—variable in determining transaction costs for freighters of Brazilian sugar. Demand for ships stimulated industry in a variety of Portuguese towns. Particularly in the north, more abundant pine forests supplied

31

Ibid., 1:391–472.

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some of the needs for new ships. In the 1620s, Porto and its hinterland, including Massarelos and Matosinhos, contributed significantly to the supply of ships available for the Brazil trade. Lisbon had its own shipyards as well as recourse to shipbuilding facilities along a fair stretch of coastline, where towns such as Peniche and Cascais contributed to the supply.32 Vessels produced there invariably had multiple owners. Well before the Brazilian sugar trade, it had been a practice for investors to own only part of a ship, and this practice continued on Brazilian routes. In Portugal, ownership of vessels was frequently measured in eighths, although an investor might own more than one-eighth, or an eighth share could be further subdivided.33 Álvaro Gomes Bravo claimed to the inquisition around 1618 that he owned one eighth of a navio, valued after a trip—probably to Brazil—at 500,000 reis.34 The sugar merchant, Francisco de Palácios also owned one eighth of a caravela, for which he paid 113,000 reis.35 Captains were also part owners of ships, in conjunction with merchant investors. Captains usually obtained their share of a ship on credit, but as both investors and suppliers of transportation they had opportunities to improve their position. On Brazil routes, captains received a fixed salary. Apart from this, they were entitled to a portion of the profits of the journey that was divided up among all of the investors in the ship. But beyond this, captains could sometimes trade on their own account or act as correspondents for merchants, assuming that the latter did not mandate that their own super cargoes sail on board. Captains gained valuable knowledge of the trade and were able to raise their own capital. In such a manner, captains could achieve real social mobility, and they sometimes joined the ranks of wealthy and successful merchants.36 Plural ownership—common throughout Europe—reduced risk for merchants since, when a ship was lost or captured, the loss was spread

Ibid., 1:454–72. Ibid., 1:403–9. 34 IANTT, IC, Processo de Álvaro Gomes Bravo, no. 6900. 35 IANTT, IL, Processo de Francisco de Palácios, no. 4481. This would place the entire value of the caravel at about 900,000 reis, which seems a bit high. But it is difficult to know how large the vessel was. Perhaps he meant that the entire ship cost 113,000 reis. 36 Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:438–46. 32 33

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over a greater number of investors.37 The geographic dispersal of the owners seemed to provide no obstacle to the arrangement. The Witte Hond, a hulk that traveled directly from Brazil to northern Europe around 1600, provides one example. Its owners were two Danzig merchants and a merchant from Middleburg. The captain—who was likely to have been a part owner—was from Hoorn.38 These types of ownership arrangements go a long way towards explaining why the activities of freighting and ship-owning in the sugar trade—or in other trades as well—were usually kept separate. Vertical integration would simply expose an investor to too much risk. Ship-owners may have occasionally been willing to freight their own vessels, but they usually took cargoes as well from other merchants, who would pay the freight charges. This type of diversification of assets and activities served to reduce risks to a merchant’s portfolio. One unintended result was to prevent large merchants from gaining monopoly power over the supply of shipping and having too great an influence on freight charges.39 When the supply of shipping was limited, there were exceptions to usual practice. In this circumstance merchants tried to take advantage of their own cargo space, even if this combination of functions exposed them to higher risk. This appears to have taken place in Portugal after 1623 when losses to the WIC put greater pressure on the Portuguese merchant marine. Around this time a number of contracts for ship ownership contain clauses requiring that cargo space be reserved for the merchant owners if they needed it.40 What, then, did ships cost? Notaries recorded some ship sales in Lisbon, and surviving records examined by Costa show considerable variation in prices for ships between 1580 and 1630. In this period twelve caravels were sold for between 60,000 and 210,000 reis. Among the vessels described as navios, there were also twelve sales, with the vessels valued between 60,000 and 400,000 reis. Ten naus are recorded, costing between 228,000 and 1,650,000 reis. A further five hulks were valued between 265,000 and 1,160,000 reis. Most of these figures do not give a precise picture of ship costs because the condition and age

37 38 39 40

Ibid., 1:413–24. Häpke, ed., Niederländische Akten und Urkunden, 2:421–30. Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:424–32. Ibid.

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Date

Ship

Type of ship

Tonnage

Price in reis

1608 1614 1619 1619 1620 1621 1627

S. João Baptista Jorge Boaventura Fenix Broa N.S. Esperança S. Lourenço S. Pedro

Hulk Hulk Nau Nau Nau Pataxo Navio

190 95 80 80 120 110 80

256,000 304,000 1,040,000 1,072,000 600,000 330,000 360,000

Table 5.4

Sales of ships revealed in Lisbon notarial archives, 1580–1630

Source: Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:362.

of the ships was not indicated, nor generally was the tonnage.41 The few records where the tonnage was indicated with precision are given on Table 5.4. These, unfortunately, are too few and too varied to show any kind of pattern. The Portuguese shipbuilding industry was hardly anemic, but it seems certain that ships were built more cheaply in the Dutch Republic than in Portugal. While Portugal and Iberian regions such as Galicia had vigorous shipbuilding industries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they were handicapped by their lack of a domestic supply of some of the integral elements in shipbuilding. Trees large enough for masts typically came from Scandinavia, and various kinds of ships’ stores were imported from northwestern Europe and the Baltic region. So dependent was Iberian shipbuilding on these supplies, that even in time of rigorous embargo, crown authorities saw the need to make exceptions for these vital items. In 1623, with the termination of the Truce, the Concelho da Fazenda still petitioned the crown to grant licenses to buy in Holland “mastos, e mais cousas necessarios” for a warship.42 At the same time, based on their effective use of technology and energy supplies, the Dutch had developed their shipbuilding industry to a degree unparalleled elsewhere in Europe.43 The shipbuilding yards of the Zaanstreek and other places employed sawmills powered by windmills,

Ibid., 1:362. AHU, Conselho Ultramarino, cod. 35, fol. 13v–14. 43 Jan de Vries and Ad van der Woude, The First Modern Economy: Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 296–9, 344–5. These advantages slipped away by the middle of the seventeenth century, as Dutch industrial processes were borrowed by rivals. 41 42

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so the Dutch were generally able to keep their labor costs down through mechanization. Furthermore, their trade position in Scandinavia was strong enough to afford them Norwegian lumber at a cost that was even below that available to shipbuilders in Norway. 44 As a result, Dutch shipyards probably turned out 400 to 500 ships per year in the period between 1625 and 1700. In Holland during this period, the industry may have employed almost 5% of the industrial work force.45 Unfortunately, no study has cast detailed light on the cost of ships in the Netherlands. But the examples in Table 5.5 show the prices of some Dutch ships that were eventually used on Brazil routes. The data here are not extensive or detailed enough to permit hard conclusions about the differences in costs of ships between Portugal and the Dutch Republic, but they do nothing to dispel the impression that Dutch ships were substantially cheaper. The N.S. do Rosario sold new for the equivalent of 3,731,059 reis in 1618, to be used on Brazilian routes. The ship was 360 tons, so this means that it sold for 10,364 Date

Ship

1595

St. Jacob

1595

Fortuyn

1597

’t Swarte Vercken Hont

1596 1618

N.S. do Rosario

Table 5.5

Type or status

new

Price in guilders (reis)46

Tons

Source

12,800 (1,861,818) 18,200 (2,642, 640) 10,300 (1,495,560) 1,500 (16, 529)

240

GA, NA, no. 32, 340

340

GA, NA, no. 32, 340

25,696 (3,731,059)

80 360

GA, NA, no. 77, 68V Koen, “Notarial Records,” 2, no. 1 (1968), 118. GA, NA, no. 611B, 430

Ship prices in the Netherlands—Brazil or Portugal trade

44 For Dutch shipbuilding see: Richard W. Unger, Ships and Shipbuilding in the North Sea and Atlantic, 1400 –1800 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997), VI; Unger, Dutch Shipbuilding before 1800, 32–40, and Violet Barbour, “Dutch and English Merchant Shipping in the Seventeenth Century,” The Economic History Review 2, no. 2 (1930): 271–83. 45 Vries and Woude, The First Modern Economy, 297. 46 Exchange calculation is based on an average exchange of 110 groten to 400 reis. 1 guilder = 40 groten. This was a fairly stable exchange rate for the period of 1600 to 1630. Ranging from about 99 groten or stuivers per cruzado (= 400 reis) to 115 or slightly higher in some years. Most years it stayed in range of 105 to 111 per cruzado. Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 214–5.

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reis per ton. The previous year two Portuguese 80-ton vessels sold for 1,040,000 and 1,072,000 reis, also for use on Brazilian routes (see Table 5.4). These cost respectively 13,000 and 13,400 reis per ton, or roughly 20% more. The Dutch-built ship would also have likely enjoyed a higher ratio of tonnage to manpower, making it more economical to sail than the smaller Portuguese vessels. Given fluid ownership arrangements, how frequently was the demand for shipping on the Brazil-Portuguese routes met by ships built abroad? Before 1605 it happened often. As described previously, Dutch and Hanseatic shipping complemented the Portuguese merchant marine on colonial routes, especially as many Portuguese caravels fell into the hands of English privateers in the last two decades of the sixteenth century. Between 1595 and 1605 at least 34 urcas passed through Pernambuco, probably all of them carrying at least some sugar.47 The provenance of most of these ships was German, according to the registers, but this was mostly likely a fiction, since some ships from the Netherlands used German papers to evade embargoes. Rather, the ownership structure of these fleets appeared to be highly convoluted, and Dutch investment was certainly implicated. The merchants who invested in these trips were a heterogeneous lot as well, comprising Portuguese in the kingdom and abroad, as well as northern European merchants.48 Once shipping was legalized between Portugal and the Dutch Republic during the Twelve Year Truce, there is no doubt that Portuguese participated in the ownership of Dutch-made vessels on

Mello, “Os Livros de Saídas,” 87–143. In 1592, Lambert Pietersz a captain from Flushing applied for a license to sail to Bremen, Brazil and back to the Netherlands. The ship must have been sizeable since it held ten guns. N. Japikse, ed., RSG, 1590–1592, RGP, grote ser. no. 55 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1923), 726. See also several such applications in 1599, including one, by the Amsterdam merchants Pieter de Hasselaer, Reynier Pauw and Henrick Buyck, who meant to sail a ship, the “St. Franciscus,” to Brazil and back to the Netherlands. The ship boasted captains described as Flemish and Brazilian. They planned to sail with a crew from Portugal or somewhere else. This may very well have been a joint Portuguese and Dutch investment. N. Japikse, ed., RSG, 1598–1599, RGP, grote ser. no. 71 (The Hague: Nijhoff ), 808–9. But even if not in so in this instance, transnational investment during this period became very apparent in the following years when some of the “German” hulks were seized and Portuguese and Dutch investors came forward to claim the cargoes. Rijperman, ed., RSG, 1602–1603, 108, 215–6, 288–289, 303, 630; H.H.P. Rijperman, ed., RSG, 1604–1606, RGP, grote ser. no. 101 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1957), 225–6, 502, 505, 506, 806, 807, 808, 810, 811. 47 48

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European routes, and vice versa. The Amsterdam merchants Laurens Joosten Baeck and Lenardo de Beer sold the 180-ton Sampson in 1618 to two Portuguese merchants: Antonio Martins Viegas in Amsterdam and Diogo Lopes Pinto in Porto. The ship had traded between Porto and Amsterdam.49 In 1620 two other merchants, Antonio Luís Antunes and Francisco Antunes bought a ship the Witte Leeuw from captain Pieter Jansen Vooren for which they paid 560,000 reis.50 These examples show that Dutch-built shipping had definitely entered into the Portuguese merchant marine. As the last chapter has indicated, Dutch and Portuguese merchants both in the Dutch Republic and in Portugal cooperated in investments, and there was no legal or structural obstacle to the extension of investments into shipping. The origins of the captain or the boat were beside the point. The principle of multiple investors allowed for inter-imperial investment in ships, and this took place with some frequency where geographically diffused merchants were united by trade routes. However, since foreign shipping was explicitly banned from Brazil after 1605, it is worthwhile asking whether Dutch-made ships entered into the sugar routes between Brazil and Portugal.51 Portuguese merchants in the Dutch Republic claimed that this was the case. The oftquoted Deductie of 1622 stated that, during the Truce, 10 to 15 ships were built yearly in the Netherlands specifically for the Brazil trade.52 This assertion may be exaggerated, since it reflected the desire of Portuguese New Christian and Jewish merchants in Amsterdam to persuade the admiralties of the Dutch Republic to refrain from confiscating sugar

Koen, “Notarial Records,” 13, no. 2 (1979): 235. Ibid., 17, no. 1 (1983): 76. 51 I have dealt with this theme also in: Ebert, “Dutch Trade with Brazil,” 69–73. The question might also be posed regarding shipping from other nations. However, given the dynamism of the Dutch shipbuilding sector during this period, their strong trade relationships with Portugal during the Twelve Year Truce, and the well-known cheapness of their vessels, it seems prudent to believe that there were no other—or at least few—viable foreign competitors in the Portuguese market. 52 “Waerdoor geduirende de voors. twaelff iaeren dese vaert ende handel soo sterck heeft aengenomen, dat iaerlijcx meer dan 10. 12 ende 15 schepen hier te lande zijn getimmert ende uitgerust geworden, die van hier over Portugael iaerlijcx 40. 50, iae met duijsenden kisten suijckeren, behalven al het bresili hout, gember catoenen, huijden ende andere waeren, in grote menichte uijt Bresil hebben hiergevoert . . .” (“Whereby during the Twelve Years mentioned this trade and trade route have expanded so much that every year 10 or 12 to 15 ships are built in this country and fitted out and bring via Portugal every year 40 or 50 thousand crates of sugar, not to mention all the brazilwood, ginger, cotton, hides and other commodities brought here in great quantities from Brazil.”) IJzerman, “Deductie,” 100. 49 50

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ships. Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to believe that something like this number of ships of Dutch manufacture were purchased in Portugal or in the Netherlands for the use of merchants on Brazilian routes. In some incidents the use of Dutch-built ships invited fraud, since Dutch captains were generally also investors in the ships that they had arranged to build and may have been attempted to sail with their ships to Brazil. Cornelis Adriaensz Minnes, a captain from Rotterdam, claimed to an Amsterdam notary that he had built a ship in Rotterdam partly at the behest of the Amsterdam Portuguese merchant, Josef Pinto, who owned an eighth share. Minnes intended to travel with the ship to Brazil, via Porto, a trip that was illegal for him.53 However, in most cases these transactions would have been perfectly legal. Given the risks of illegal travel to Brazil, ships probably changed names and captains when they went into service on Brazilian routes, that is, they became Portuguese ships. This happened with the Coninck David, which traveled from the Dutch Republic around 1621 to Viana with the captain Huijbert Pietersz. The owner of the ship, with a 5/6th share was the Amsterdam Portuguese merchant, Tomás Nunes Pina. With the merchandise sold in Viana, it received a Portuguese captain and crew, was re-christened A Senhora do Carmo and traveled to Teixeira where it loaded 40 pipes of wine.54 From there it proceeded to Bahia, sold the wine and loaded 125 crates of sugar and nine vats of ginger. Returning to Portugal it was seized by the Dutch admiralty, which was—with the expiration of the Truce—trying again to disrupt Brazilian traffic. From the point of view of the Dutch admiralty, this was now a Portuguese ship, whatever its provenance.55 The tight network of merchants operating between Portugal, Brazil and northwestern Europe allowed ships to change hands easily. In the Dutch Republic the inter-imperial nature of investment in Brazilian shipping was well known. As the Truce lapsed in 1621, Dutch confiscations of Brazilian shipping prompted a strong reaction by Portuguese merchants in Amsterdam, as represented in the Deductie. They claimed to the States General that Dutch shipping had played a special role in the Brazilian sugar trade:

53 54 55

GAA, NA, no. 611B, 430. This type of illegal trading is dealt with in Chapter 7. Two pipes occupied one ton of space. GAA, NA, no. 646A, 39–41.

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This, in short, is the origin, purpose and nature of this trade, whose profits have been enjoyed by the land and shall be enjoyed in the future, as we will indicate. And we will show how different the situation is with all of the other routes of the Spanish to the West Indies and elsewhere; the Portuguese to Cabo Verde, São Tomé, Mina, Angola, the Congo, the East Indies and elsewhere: in which all of the voyages are made with their own ships, of which your excellencies’ subjects have neither part nor portion, since they make all these voyages on their own account. In consequence when these ships are taken at sea, brought here and declared to be just prizes, this happens without harm or disadvantage to the inhabitants of these lands. This is quite different with the ships and goods traveling to and from Brazil, in which we with the Portuguese, and they with us are inseparably attached and mingled.56

Whether or not ships plying the Brazilian routes were Dutch ships with Dutch crews and captains, or had become ‘Portuguese,’ the pattern of transnational investment was indisputable. The availability of relatively inexpensive Dutch ships to serve on Brazilian routes during the Twelve Year Truce probably reduced overall costs for Portuguese shippers. This is claimed in the Deductie and confirmed by indirect evidence.57 The contribution of 10 to 15 Dutch ships per year to the Portuguese merchant marine would have made a difference. In the year 1612, for example, total sugar production in Brazil was probably around 672,000 arrobas. At 54 arrobas per cargo ton, this would have amounted to 12,444 cargo tons of sugar needing transportation (see Chapter 8, Table 8.1). If even only ten ships of Dutch provenance, each capable of carrying 200 tons, served that year on Brazil routes, this means that Dutch-built ships would have been able to carry 2,000 tons of sugar to Portugal, or 16% of the total. If more Dutch-built ships were involved, or the average carrying capacity was larger, the percentage of the total may have been higher. These, of course, are theoretical calculations, but it is highly credible that cheap Dutch ships in the Portuguese merchant marine helped to lower the transaction costs for shipping sugar from Brazil to Portugal. This helps also to explain the fact that freight charges during this period were relatively low (see Chapter 8). The data presented here do not always admit of firm conclusions regarding the transactions costs in trading Brazilian sugar. In a trade that was literally born on the winds, there was never any sure way to 56 57

IJzerman, “Deductie,” 101. Ibid.

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predict how long a voyage would last or how much it would cost. Given these constraints, merchants nevertheless tried to exert some control over the variables that affected their costs. As we have seen, one of these involved a choice of ports. The sugar routes between Brazil and Portugal operated out of a variety of ports. To a certain extent, this allowed merchants flexibility in deciding where to land cargoes. In Portugal the northern ports of Viana and Porto taxed less than Lisbon, but Lisbon offered relatively speedy loading and unloading. Undoubtedly, Lisbon got the major share of sugar cargoes between 1550 and 1630. In Brazil, Pernambuco attracted the most traffic, at least until 1630, and also offered the fasted turnaround time in harbor, although it is difficult to know if this was a cause or an effect of its leading role as a producer. Traffic directed to northern harbors seems to have been contingent on the geographical orientation of merchant networks and political circumstances, described in preceding chapters. Operating expenses of ships were a major part of the transaction costs of trading sugar. These were tied to their size, and from 1550 to 1630 merchants freighted ships of different sizes based on supply and their perception of the risks of piracy and privateering at sea. Larger ships, those above 130 tons, usually offered a more economical ratio of tonnage to manpower. But for much of the period between 1550 and 1630, smaller ships—caravels—predominated on the sugar routes between Portugal and Brazil, and the Portuguese shipyards turned out these vessels in considerable quantities. When sugar moved to the northwest of Europe it traveled in ships built in the Low Countries and Germany. Especially during the Twelve Year Truce, Dutch-built ships probably carried the vast majority of sugar from Lisbon to other European destinations. These ships were associated with operating costs that were so low that they frequently performed segments of trading voyages on ballast. These same Dutch ships—cheaply built and operated—penetrated the sea-lanes between Portugal and Brazil during the Twelve Year Truce. They could do so because the patterns of inter-imperial investment that linked merchants in Portugal, Brazil and the Dutch Republic allowed for Dutch ships to be sold in Portuguese markets and effectively become ‘Portuguese.’ A likely result was that cheap Dutch shipping put downward pressure on freight charges between Brazil and Portugal. The savings produced in Dutch shipyards were passed on to sugar merchants indirectly through lower transaction costs. These benefits

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did not outlast the Truce. When hostilities were renewed, horrified Portuguese merchants in Amsterdam testified to the damage that would be done to two economies that were highly interlinked in the Brazilian sugar trade.

CHAPTER SIX

TRANSACTIONS AND RISK MANAGEMENT Brazilian sugar entered European markets during a period of long-term expansion in intercontinental trade. It was itself a strong impetus to the development of Atlantic trade. The trade in Brazilian sugar had obvious antecedents in the sugar trade from Madeira and São Tomé. Although it eventually dwarfed these other trades in its scale, it used trade patterns that had already been established. Also, merchants could rely on precedents and techniques to move sugar from the eastern coast of South America to distant markets in Europe. Some of these techniques were financial and were coming into common practice just as Brazilian sugar emerged in world markets. This chapter looks at the systems of credit and risk management that made the sugar trade possible. Some of these had been in use since the middle Ages, pioneered by Italian merchants. But the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed a number of financial innovations that lowered transaction costs.1 This had important consequences, for without these new systems of banking, finance and maritime insurance, a trade with such a wide geographic scope could not thrive. The Brazilian sugar trade was a modern trade, not only in its merchant organization, but also in the financial transactions that allowed it to prosper over political boundaries.2 In fact, it was precisely in the area of investment that the inter-imperial organization of the trade was most manifest. At the same time, there is no doubt that as the Brazilian sugar trade expanded dramatically in the latter half of the sixteenth century, it helped to spread new financial practices. When sugar was valued in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was valued in the money of account in a particular region. In practice,

For a theoretical framework see: North, “Institutions, Transaction Costs,” 22–40. Vries and Woude, The First Modern Economy, 368–9. Note the authors’ description of economic modernity, describing the Dutch economy after about 1585. As this chapter will reveal, Dutch financial practices were applied to the sugar trade along with Dutch investment. 1 2

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this was usually expressed in relation to the various silver coins that formed the principal means of exchange in early modern Europe and the smaller coins related to them that were everywhere in circulation. In Portugal this was the silver cruzado, comprising four hundred reis and roughly equivalent to an Italian or Spanish ducat. In the Dutch Republic, the chief silver coin was the guilder ( ƒ), made up of forty groten. The exchange rate between groten and reis might fluctuate in this period from 102/400 to 119/400; these currencies generally maintained a stable exchange rate with each other in the period discussed here.3 In some cases, sugar was used as a payment in lieu of money: in 1578 The Dutch merchant, Hans Snell, recorded that the exchequer of the new Portuguese king, Cardinal Antonio, was repaying him a debt in sugar worth 5,500 arrobas. We can be sure that Hans Snel, who kept close track of international sugar prices, knew precisely the value of this merchandise in the money of account.4 The value of sugar might be paid in silver coins, but, fortunately, its circulation was not always conditioned by the availability of specie. Although the money supply in Europe was increasing by the middle of the sixteenth century, it was far from enough to accommodate all commercial transactions. The shortage of specie was particularly acute in Brazil, in spite of some contraband movement of Potosí silver into the colony from the settlements at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata.5 The sixteenth century witnessed a great expansion in the circulation of paper money and new instruments of payment and credit. These new techniques for doing business and providing enforcement developed within merchant communities, with only the fitful involvement of states, since neither Roman nor Germanic law were well suited to resolve merchant disputes.6 The developments were centered on Antwerp in the sixteenth century and then in Amsterdam in the seventeenth. Since these two cities were also the predominate staples for Brazilian sugar, it

Koen, “Notarial Records,” 1, no. 2 (1967): 110. Uitterdijk, Een Kamper Handelshuis, 149. There are also numerous references of payment in sugar dating to the early sixteenth century in: the IANTT. Two indicate just a few: Corpo Cronológico, Parte I, maço 6, no. 5; maço 6, no. 31. 5 Stuart B. Schwartz, Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550 –1835 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 204–8. 6 Douglass C. North, “Institutions, transaction costs, and the rise of merchant empires,” in The Political Economy of Merchant Empires, ed. James D. Tracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 30–1. 3 4

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is hardly surprising that merchants trading in it used these new financial instruments widely. Since the middle ages, merchants had tried to avoid traveling with large quantities of specie, and northern Italians had pioneered techniques to prevent this, culminating in the system of letters of exchange that allowed merchants to either pay or offset mutual debts with the aid of cashiers or bankers in the great European fairs. For centuries, letters of exchange dominated in long distance trade, especially transcontinental trade routes linking north and south. Sanctioned by the church, since they were not considered usurious, letters of exchange also obtained some limited negotiability. Furthermore, these instruments could hide loans at interest. Since they envisioned delayed payment—the periods of usance denoting payment at a fair at a distant time—creditors could hide interest payments in the terms of repayment and also gain from the arbitrage resulting from the currency exchange transaction at the time of the recambium, or final exchange. This possibility of profit attracted the great Tuscan merchant houses that dominated these international exchange operations and were present in every European trade center.7 The letter of exchange was less common in the northern trading centers as a financial instrument, at least before 1550, but gained in use after that. By then the role of arbitrage was less important, and the letters were mainly used just to provide credit and payment in an international context. By the end of the sixteenth century, letters of exchange had become common in long distance trade based in northwestern Europe.8 Another medieval Italian merchant institution, the deposit and clearing bank, staged a late breakthrough in the northwest. Although these banks underwent crises in the fifteenth century, their advantages to merchants were manifest, since they allowed the concentration of payments and large-scale set-offs of debts, effectively increasing the circulation of money. Such a system had developed in Bruges in the fourteenth century, but it had not spread. The fifteenth century banking

7 Herman van der Wee, A History of European Banking (Antwerp: European Investment Bank: Fonds Mercator, 2000), 97–9. 8 Herman van der Wee, “Monetary, Credit and Banking Systems,” in The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. 5, ed. E.E. Rich and C.H. Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 324.

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crisis, coupled with competition from the Dukes of Burgundy who were acting as moneychangers, hindered its development. As Antwerp rose as an important money market in the sixteenth century, the banking function was taken over rather by the kassiersbedrijf (cash keepers), who kept deposits and handled financial transactions on behalf of others. A similar cash-keeping business arose in Amsterdam by the end of the sixteenth century. A bit later, Amsterdam made the transition to a nearly modern type of deposit and clearing bank, the wisselbank, founded in 1609.9 The expansion of trade in the Atlantic world, and the burgeoning trade centers that arose to serve it in the sixteenth century called for new types of credit. As van der Wee has clearly shown, the innovation of the northwest, and particularly Antwerp, was not in institutions, but in new instruments of credit, which met the exigencies of Atlantic trade. The main achievement in this area was to improve the negotiability of credit instruments, particularly promissory notes. The principle of extension of payment had been well established in northern trading areas since the late Middle Ages, and IOUs, not bills of exchange, were the main form of security. Unlike bills of exchange, letters obligatory were long-term, necessitated by the patterns of trade predominating in the north. By the late middle ages, these letters obligatory were sometimes written with bearer’s clauses, but insecurity persisted, since there was no legal framework to provide protection as the IOU circulated from hand to hand. The first step towards resolving this problem was taken with a judicial verdict in Antwerp in 1507 that provided the same legal protection to bearers as original creditors in collecting from a debtor. This rule quickly spread, and was institutionalized in 1537 for all of the Habsburg Netherlands in an imperial edict. Circulation of letters soon became widespread.10 Antwerp’s merchants took a further step towards negotiability by applying the principle of ‘assignment’ to the circulation of IOUs. Bills could circulate up to twenty times, and intermediary bearers ceased to be responsible once the bill left their hands. Since not all merchants were intimately connected, a risk persisted that a bearer might not be able to collect from an original debtor whom he might barely know. Assignment meant that now all intermediary bearers were jointly

9 10

Ibid., 310–15, 323. Ibid., 325.

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responsible if the original debtor was in default. While bills were not actually endorsed in the sixteenth century, merchant’s accounts books or separate letters of assignment could prove the provenance of IOUs. The principle of assignment, designed to encourage confidence and honest business practices, received imperial endorsement in an Edict of 31 October 1541. By the end of the sixteenth century it had become standard business practice in England, the Hansa towns and much of the Atlantic trading sphere.11 One of the Antwerp merchant bankers who had petitioned the government to adopt the principle of assignment was none other than Erasmus Schetz, an early Flemish owner of a Brazilian sugar mill. By the early seventeenth century, assignment had been adopted for the ever more common bills of exchange, and, in fact, the innovation of written endorsement for bills of exchange developed out of this practice.12 Two further innovations of the Antwerp market were ‘discounting’ and futures speculation. As commercial instruments began to circulate widely and the Antwerp Exchange increasingly took on the aspect of a money market, money dealers and cash keepers purchased unexpired IOUs and eventually bills of exchange, for cash, less a premium. By the early seventeenth century, this form of discount banking had become common in Antwerp and later elsewhere. The financial nature of the Antwerp Exchange also invited futures speculation, which, although not an entirely new phenomenon, grew to be practiced widely by the middle of the sixteenth century. Purchasers either received goods for which they would pay later, or received pay for goods to be delivered at a future date. Both forms of transactions involved bets on the rise or fall in prices.13 Underlying this great extension of circulating paper in the sixteenth century was the infusion of specie into European society. Both the productivity of European mines as well as the flow of great quantities of New World silver into Europe offered a greater abundance of money in the European economy, symbolized by the large silver coins— such as the ducat and the stuiver—which circulated everywhere. This had a major effect on the terms of extension of payment, especially in northwestern Europe. The letter obligatory reflected a new spirit of Portuguese merchants living in Antwerp used these instruments widely. Pohl, Die Portugiesen in Antwerpen, 239. 12 Wee, “Monetary, Credit and Banking Systems,” 326–8. 13 Discounting was not practiced in Portugal. Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 323. 11

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generosity with repayment terms sometimes extending up to twelve months. Merchandise payment terms in the southern Netherlands ranged generally from two to 12 months, and early payment usually received a discount. Terms were not so generous in Portugal. There the ordinary repayment time was three months, and discounting was not common.14 The increased supply of money also showed in the large amounts of money available for loans and in fairly low interest rates, as compared to the previous century. Antwerp merchants might lend money at a rate of 5 to 6 ¼% per year. Italian banks lent at 3–5%. A century before it was more in the range of 10 –12%. There were no religious constraints about lending at interest in the Low Countries, even though these persisted in the Iberian Peninsula.15 What were the consequences of freer credit and new forms of credit transactions in Europe for the Brazilian sugar trade? Credit transactions became commonplace in Brazil and linked Brazilian production with finance in Europe. A few examples may suffice to show the patterns. Late in 1618 Antonio Mendes Cardoso, a Portuguese merchant in Amsterdam, purchased sugar that had arrived from Porto in a shipment sent by Francisco de Cáceres. Cáceres had shipped for the account of Francisco de Lemos, also in Portugal. Cardoso arranged to pay Lemos through his Portuguese agent Luís Pereira de Miranda who, with power of attorney, signed a bill of exchange to Lemos. The letter stipulated payment in Bahia, half in six months time and the other half in twelve months. Cardoso’s relatives in Brazil were to make good on the debt. While the method of payment was not stipulated, since the debt was to be collected in Brazil, it would probably be paid in sugar. Cardoso pledged merchandise as security in the form of a shipment—along with insurance policies—he was sending as a consignment to a correspondent in Brazil. This complicated transaction was done with paper money, and presumably no specie changed hands.16

Ibid., 321–3. Ibid., 320. Pedreira mentions the persistence of usury laws as a possible structural impediment to the development of the Portuguese economy. However, it should be noted, that Portuguese merchants had access to credit markets outside of Portugal. Pedreira, “ ‘To Have and to Have Not’,” 93–122. 16 GAA, NA, no. 381, 506–8. The use of a notary to record this transaction probably indicates some degree of caution on the part of the parties to this transaction. Perhaps they had not done business before and sought to formalize the exchange with a notary in case there was any future problem. 14 15

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Did the Brazilian sugar trade force further innovation in the development of paper instruments for trade? In the period to 1630 no evidence so far collected has shown this. However, it stands to reason that the quick incorporation of these credit instruments into the burgeoning Atlantic trading world only enhanced their popularity. On the other hand, many of the trades centered in northwestern Europe were carried out over long distances, even in the inter-European routes. A round-trip from Portugal to Brazil was no longer than a round trip from Danzig to Lisbon. Lengthy time and distance, and extended inter-imperial merchant networks were not unique to the Brazil trade but rather characteristic of many of the bulk trades that formed the backbone of the northwestern European commercial economy. When specie did change hands, it was more likely to be in the financial centers of Lisbon or Amsterdam, rather than in Brazil. In 1620 two Amsterdam Portuguese merchants partially settled a debt with a payment of 130,350 reis. Rui Diaz D’Orta paid this amount to Dr. Francisco Lopes Enriques. However D’Orta paid on behalf of the debtor, Antonio Ruiz Chaves who lived in Bahia. Chaves did not send currency from Brazil. Chaves and D’Orta had sent Rouen linen to Bahia, sold it and purchased sugar for shipment to Portugal. The payment came from the proceeds of the sugar in Lisbon.17 Just as the sixteenth century witnessed a much greater mobility of capital through the use of new financial instruments, transaction costs probably also fell through new techniques of spreading risk. Risks to shipping in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were abundant, and vessels carrying sugar, particularly those plying the Brazil-Portuguese routes were vulnerable. As opposed to cargoes arriving from Asia, Brazilian cargoes of sugar and brazilwood did not offer profits that easily justified the use of large and heavily armed and manned ships. The Portuguese preference for the use of caravels on the Brazil routes invited the scorn of Padre Vieira who described them as “schools for cowardice” since they seldom held many guns or those trained to fire them.18 Dutch merchants were also wary of the costs imposed by

GAA, NA, no. 645, 909. See also many examples of paper transactions in Koen, “Notarial Records,” including 4, no. 1 (1970): 124; 12, no. 1 (1978): 175, 177–9; 13, no. 1 (1979): 106; 16, no. 2 (1982): 217. 18 Schwartz, Sugar Plantations, 180. 17

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heavy armament in trade routes dominated by a lower ratio of value to bulk.19 One solution, sending ships together in armed convoy, met with little favor, at least not in the Atlantic context. Before the founding of the WIC, Dutch merchants shunned admiralschap, or sailing together.20 In Portugal the principle of convoy sailing had its advocates, and political authorities made various attempts starting from almost the beginning of the sugar trade to encourage this type of transit.21 Almost invariably, merchants and captains resisted these schemes. Sailing in fleets slowed sailing time to the speed of the slowest vessel. Consequently, even when ships set out in fleets they did not often observe the discipline to maintain them.22 A convoy system also increased turnover time in ports and flooded markets with goods that could not always absorb them easily. In the case of sugar, even a large entrepôt in the northwest could suffer when too much reached the warehouses at the same time. When Piet Heyn arrived in Zeeland with 2,000 crates of sugar plundered in 1627 from Bahian mills, prices dropped considerably.23 Many merchants and captains preferred to sail alone and take their chances with pirates and privateers. Of course, natural catastrophe also took its toll on Atlantic shipping. Early modern ships were ill equipped to deal with the ravages of winds, waves and unseen shoals. While ships on the Atlantic routes had a longer life than those sailing to the East Indies, few ships in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries made more than a handful of voyages before they were retired.24 Custom dictated that merchants and 19 Violet Barbour, “Marine Risks and Insurance in the Seventeenth Century,” Journal of Economic and Business History 1 (1928/29): 563. 20 Ibid., 565. 21 AHU, Conselho Ultramarino, Cod. 35, fol. 128, 128v; fol. 165, 165v; fol. 187 and following pages. 22 A good example is a fleet organized to depart from Pernambuco on the 21st of August 1618. The fleet consisted of “vinte e tres Vellas, desanove Naos e quatro Caravellas, hua pera a ilha da Madeira, tres pera esta cidade, e treze Naos; Pera o Porto tres, Viana duas, e pera Aveiro hua.” Citing the dangers from corsairs in the shipping lanes, authorities required the captains to sign an agreement to sail in a fleet, with a penalty of 20 cruzados laid out for breaking rank. A Capitão Môr, Manoel Mendes de Vasconcelos, presided over the fleet. Seven days under sail, the Viana-destined ship sailed away from the fleet, and subsequently discipline collapsed totally. Presumably, the desire to profit by being first into Portuguese harbors outweighed the disincentives of potential capture by pirates or a 20-cruzado (8,000 reis) fine, AHU, Pernambuco, caixa 1, (November 21, 1618). 23 Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 192–3. 24 The “Sampson” a ship from Zeeland was considered to be in poor shape after one trip to India and two to Brazil. In 1593, it nevertheless made a third trip to Brazil,

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captains inspect vessels before undertaking voyages, but complaints about barely seaworthy vessels formed one of the chief sources of disputes among merchants.25 One of the most obvious and ancient responses of merchants to risk at sea was to diversify their portfolios. While a poorly established merchant might not have the capital to invest widely, those who had built up their capital and credit did not stake it on one type of investment. In the sugar trade there were few merchants who were only sugar traders. Rather they traded in a variety of commodities along the routes that were available to them, hoping—presumably—that if the premium of arbitrage on one type of merchandise was not favorable, it might be so on another. And even when merchants did send a large cargo of a single commodity, they often preferred to minimize the risk of its loss at sea by freighting it among several vessels. The practice of merchants in parceling-out their cargos extended to investments in ship owning. As described in the previous chapter, multiple investors usually owned ships. This practice arose for various reasons. On one level, it allowed people to pool their capital in order to acquire what were very expensive capital goods by the standards of the time.26 But the level of fractional holding in a ship could also respond to the perception of risk at sea. Although her database remains too small to admit any definite conclusions, Costa has found telling trends among the 114 contracts for ship ownership in the Brazilian trade that she has examined in the Lisbon and Porto archives for the period between 1580 and 1640. In periods of less risk—including 1615 to 1623—she has noted fewer owners mentioned per ship in ship-owning contracts.

via Lisbon, on the return voyage its mast was damaged. Nevertheless, after a threemonth voyage it landed a cargo of 500 crates of sugar in Vigo. GAA, NA, no. 75, 5–7. See also: G.V. Scammell, “European seamanship in the great age of discovery,” Mariner’s Mirror 68 (1982). 25 As was the case with the unfortunate with “Den Neptunus,” which arrived in Lisbon from Brazil in 1596 with a cargo of sugar. The super cargo sent it on to Livorno, but it made it no further than Cadiz owing to its damaged and leaky condition. In Cadiz, its sugar was stored in a warehouse, while repairs proceeded at a dilatory pace, partly since, according to the owners, the workmen observed too many feast days. Alas, the ship remained too long in Cadiz and was burned under English attack and the sugar was taken. GAA, NA, no. 54, 130. 26 For the popularity of investment in shipping by small shareholders in the Dutch Republic, see: Barbour, “Dutch and English Merchant Shipping,” 278–9. In the Dutch case, it seems that shipbuilding was simply valued as a good investment.

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As the threat to Portuguese-Brazilian shipping increased after 1623, the number of investors in single ships seemed to multiply.27 Another common response to marine risks by the sixteenth century was the purchase of maritime insurance. In fact, maritime insurance was the earliest form of insurance in general. As with so many other financial breakthroughs, northern Italians pioneered it, but by the beginning of the seventeenth century insurance was widespread.28 Investors did not always buy insurance, depending on the level of risk they perceived, but in times of heightened maritime risk it was common. A fleet of 80 ships leaving Lisbon for northern Europe in February of 1623, at a time in which the WIC eagerly sought Portuguese prizes, was said to be insured “to the nails.”29 Attempts to organize and regulate maritime insurance in Portugal date to the Middle Ages. The earliest attempt anywhere by a government to organize this business may in fact have been in Portugal under King Denis. In the fourteenth century, King Ferdinand I set up a shipping company with an insurance fund containing a fixed premium for investors. As a practical matter, use of insurance was initially more common among the Italians, and the first ever systematic treatise on maritime insurance, Tractatus de Assecuratioinibus et Sponsionibus Mercatorium appeared in Italy in 1553. However, its author was Pedro de Santarem, a Portuguese commercial agent. The increasing importance of insurance in the sixteenth century for commercial life can be seen in the actions of King-Cardinal Henry, who set up a consulado, or insurance tribunal, to adjucate disputes. This was temporarily abolished upon the accession of Philip II, but soon restored: now in the style of Castilian insurance courts.30 These actions marked a trend. The increasing volume of trade in the sixteenth century, and the orgy of piracy and privateering that preyed upon it, led to attempts to regulate and provide a more formal framework for the insurance market in many places. Antwerp’s insurance market was partly regulated in the sixteenth century with the main intention that merchants did not take out more than one policy

Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:408–13. Pohl, Die Portugiesen in Antwerpen, 265–6. 29 Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 315–6. 30 T.R. de Souza, “Marine Insurance and Indo-Portuguese Trade History: An Aid to Maritime Historiography,” The Indian Economic and Social History Review 14, no. 3 (1977): 377–8. 27 28

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on a shipment, and that they freight 10% of their cargo at their own risk.31 In Antwerp, as elsewhere, premiums varied dramatically depending on the perception of risk. Trips from Portugal to Brazil could cost at times as much as 24% of the value of the cargo.32 The insurance business waxed and waned following the vagaries of politics and war, and premiums rose and fell accordingly. The second half of the sixteenth century—not a felicitous time for Brabant—witnessed a falling back of the insurance business in Antwerp, and premiums were high.33 But at the same time, insurance markets were growing in the cities of London, Dover, Hamburg and Amsterdam, partly because now cargoes frequently ended up there instead of Antwerp.34 Amsterdam’s insurance market—and its regulatory framework—rose at the same time as the city moved into economic preeminence. Insurance probably became common in Holland in the latter half of the sixteenth century. By 1598 the city of Amsterdam set up a chamber of assurance to register policies and settle disputes.35 Policies were sold by official brokers and subject to the rules of the brokers’ guild.36 The Amsterdam chamber enjoyed a high reputation for secrecy and for prompt settlement. Merchants especially esteemed the former quality since they dreaded any public airing of their business practices.37 At least some evidence shows that the particular risks of the Brazilian sugar trade prompted merchants to seek stronger institutional support in the Dutch Republic, and the States General took notice. One example of this process can be seen in the events surrounding the capture by French pirates of the ship the Hoope which left Rio de Janeiro with a cargo of sugar at the beginning of 1618.38 Several institutions came into play in the case of the Hoope: Amsterdam’s insurance courts at Pohl, Die Portugiesen in Antwerpen, 265–6. Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 316–7. 33 Pohl, Die Portugiesen in Antwerpen, 267. 34 Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 317. Chambers of Assurance appeared in London in 1601, Rotterdam in 1614, Marseilles in 1669 and Paris in 1671. Barbour, “Marine Risks and Insurance,” 573. 35 Violet Barbour, Capitalism in Amsterdam in the 17th Century (Ann Arbour: University of Michigan Press, 1963), 33. 36 Koen, “Notarial Records,” 12, no. 1 (1978): 175–76. 37 Barbour, “Marine Risks and Insurance,” 573–5. 38 This voyage is mentioned elsewhere in this and other chapters, and is documented in the following sources: GAA, NA, no. 381: 300; 460: 386–386v; 381: 299, 300, 329, 350, 391, 485, 508. Summaries of some of these documents are also to be found in Koen, “Notarial Records,” 13, no. 1 (1979): 108; 13, no. 2 (1979): 222–3, 230; 14, no. 1 (1980): 94; 16, no. 2 (1982): 200; 18, no. 2 (1984): 167, 174. 31 32

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the local level and the States General of the Dutch Republic at the state level. Once news of its capture became known in Europe, the investors in the cargo, whether in the Dutch Republic or in Portugal began to seek a payout from their insurers. These cases were decided through Amsterdam’s insurance courts, and claims on the cargoes were made in France as late as four years after the seizure of the vessel.39 Furthermore, the case propelled merchants to seek the assistance of the States General of the Dutch Republic who wrote to the French crown in an attempt to retrieve the Hoope for its owners once it was known to be in France, and directed its diplomatic personnel to pursue the case.40 The merchants involved paid for these interventions. This represented a state, and not just a local, response to merchants’ disputes. In spite of a developing institutional framework, much maritime insurance was informally arranged. It came down to merchants insuring other trusted merchant parties to disperse risk without the benefit of a publicly celebrated contract. Usually the only stipulation was that the insurer was not a party to the transaction he insured, but even this caution was not always observed. Furthermore, merchants contracted with various insurers to insure parts of a cargo. Few insurers took on responsibility for more than 200 ducats per shipment or ship.41 This meant that providing insurance was a widely dispersed activity. The testimony of a single broker in Amsterdam in 1618 revealed that 42 different underwriters, mostly large merchants from Holland and Zeeland, had contracted services through him.42 Insurance as a highly specialized economic activity belonged to the future, since investors typically included insurance as only a part of their portfolio. A group of large merchants in Amsterdam hatched a plan in 1628 to form a company

39 Freighters included: Francisco Coutinho, Luís Pereira de Miranda, Simão de Leão, Joseph Pinto, Francisco de Cáceres, Diogo Gomes Mendes, Diogo Lopes Pinto, Manuel Pinto and Pedro and João de la Faya, Gaspar Marcos Mendes, Álvaro Gomes Bravo. Many of these freighters were based in Amsterdam, but some, such as Cáceres, were in Portugal. The latter was imprisoned in 1618 by the Holy Office. Insurers included: Pieter van Gheel, David de l’Hommel, Hans Willemsse van Elsinck, Valerius van Gistele de Oude, Jan Smit, Jan Stassart, Albert Schuijt, Henri Thibault, Manuel Carvalho, Daniel and Jan van Gheel. 40 The capturing of “de Hoope” also prompted a diplomatic exchange between the States General and the Kingdom of France, transcribed in, Grote Ser., No. 152. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1975 J.G. Smit, ed., RSG, 1617–1618, RGP, Grote Ser. 152 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1975), 422, 447, 451, 559–60, 579, 583. 41 Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 316. 42 Ebert, “Dutch Trade with Brazil,” 67.

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chartered by the government to monopolize maritime insurance. This rent-seeking plan was dropped after five years following considerable protest from merchants from the large Dutch cities.43 The lack of specialization and centralization in insurance markets fit well with the Brazilian sugar trade, which itself operated from such a large number of ports. It seems probable that insurance policies were common for shipments of Brazilian sugar in virtually all of its export phases, given the risks at sea. Furthermore, insurance was easily obtained. A merchant’s access to insurance was limited only by his connections. He could contract in many different cities and sometimes in more than one for the same shipment. It was possible to have traffic between Porto and Brazil insured in Madrid, or to insure a trip from Lisbon to Venice in Antwerp.44 For example, the Antwerpbased Portuguese merchant, Rodrigo Ximenes insured two cargos of sugar leaving from Pernambuco on the vessels, Salvator, captained by Jan Cordts, and St. Jan, captained by Jan Martens. The ships were probably bound for a Portuguese harbor. The policy was contracted in Amsterdam.45 The insurer was Cornelis Snellinck, who at this time was engaged in his own Brazil trade, arranged through partners in Portugal and Antwerp.46 Portuguese merchants abroad were active in both buying and selling policies for trips between Brazil and Portugal. Many of Antwerp’s resident Portuguese merchants served as insurers or insurance brokers. In 1594, Luís Fernandes, along with Flemish and French merchants in Antwerp undersigned a policy for a sugar shipment from Bahia consigned to Lisbon for a merchant, Jehan Dubois, who contracted the policy through his agent, Julien del Court. The ship, the Faulcon Blancq, sailed under the Rotterdam captain, Willem Martensz, and was attacked and sunk by French pirates.47 Portuguese merchants in Antwerp commonly insured cargoes going between that city and Portugal or Spain, as well as voyages on the Portuguese colonial routes, since they tended to possess the most up-to-date information about risks and dangers.48 Barbour, “Marine Risks and Insurance,” 573–5. Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 316–7. 45 Pohl, Die Portugiesen in Antwerpen, 267. 46 GAA, NA, no. 33, 390v–392. 47 Pohl, Die Portugiesen in Antwerpen, 268. 48 Ibid., 269–70. There are no insurance policies in the notarial archives in Lisbon or Porto, but this does not mean that insurance was not arranged in these commercial centers. Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:228. 43 44

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Insurance policies themselves could circulate as payment. Antonio Mendez Carlos, a Portuguese merchant in Amsterdam, declared himself ready to make payment for a debt owed to Francisco de Lemos with a cargo of merchandise sailing from Zeeland to the Canary Islands along with the insurance policies that accompanied them, valued at 350 pounds.49 Policies purchased in Amsterdam before 1630 showed that insurance absorbed the energies of a widely dispersed merchant community, even if the trend was towards specialization. Table 6.1 shows the structure for some insurance policies contracted in Amsterdam for voyages between Brazil and Portugal. The documents reflected in this table do not always specify all the individual insurers, but at least in a few instances they identify many insurers in a single policy. The use of multiple insurers was probably standard practice. These few policies extant in Amsterdam’s notarial archives do not allow us to assess the frequency of insurance policies on the Brazil-Portugal route, but given the secrecy that often attended this business in general, the presence of just a few may hint at a much more widespread practice. Even after the expiration of the Twelve Year Truce, insurance policies were issued from Amsterdam for the sugar trade, and Portuguese insurers in Amsterdam were involved in some of these transactions. These kinds of merchant transactions were in opposition to the government’s political objectives, and in particular to those of the WIC. But these transactions must have continued in some volume, since the States General forbade them in 1622.50 As Table 6.1 suggests, some Amsterdam merchants still provided insurance for Portuguese voyages to Brazil as late as 1629 when the Dutch were openly at war against Portuguese shipping in the Atlantic. Selling insurance to the enemy persisted even though it went against the political aims of the WIC and the States General.

49 50

GAA, NA, no. 381, 506–508. Barbour, Capitalism in Amsterdam, 34.

transactions and risk management Year

Insurers

Insured

1597

Volckert Siouxsz (Amsterdam)

1606

Various Insurers in Amsterdam

1614

Jan Jansz Smit, Jorgen Timmerman, Jehan Heijckes, Cornelis Claesz Soeteman, Willem Cornelisz, Jacob Lucas Meijaertsz, Bartholomeus and Abraham Bisschop, Lambert van Erp, Wijbrant Warwijck, Francois Thijsz, Isaac Haeck, Hans van Soldt de Jonge, Godaert Kerckerinck, Pelgrom van Os, Elias van Gheel (all Amsterdam) Jan Heuft (Rouen) François Wouters (Amsterdam) Luís Pereira de Miranda, broker (Amsterdam) Bartholomeus Munter (Amsterdam)

Barent Sas Vliegende Raven, Lisbon-Angola(Amsterdam) Merten Brazil-LisbonHermissen Zeeland or (Hoorn) Holland Abraham Tijger, Zeeland-Portugalvan Lemens Adriaan van Brazil-Portugal(Amsterdam) Santfoort Emden, (Zeeland) Hamburg or other “free” places Jan Heuft Dolphijn, Dieppe-Brazilian (Rouen) Touchain Pol Coast-Le Havre or Dieppe

1616

1621

1629

Ijsbrant Dobbesz, Gerbrant Dobbesz, Jan Parijs de Jonge, Jan van der Straeten, Arnoult van der Hem, Volcard Croock, Tatich an Harinckhoeck, Jacob Biscop

Table 6.1

Simão Nunes de Matos (Portugal) Diogo Nunes Vitoria (Amsterdam) Michiel Corael

Ship, Captain

Voyage

Nosse Senhora Bahia-Porto da Batalha, Estevão Costa Merce de Deus, PernambucoAndre Lopes Porto Anzinho Nosse Senhora Bahia-Madeira de Encarnação, Pedro Gonsalves

123 Cargo n/a

n/a, premium is 22% merchandise

Sugar, merchandise n/a

n/a

Some records of maritime insurance policies in the GAA, contracted for voyages to Brazil

Sources: GAA, NA, no. 78, 155; no. 104, 209; no. 377, 74; no. 379, 594; no. 611A, 279; no. 384, 31; no. 399, 169

How can this contradiction be explained? The insurance industry was competitive and inter-imperial, and did not respond readily to the mercantilist directives of the States General. Amsterdam and other cities in Holland and Zeeland were in an unusual position as both insurance centers serving, among other things, the Brazilian sugar

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trade, and hosts to fleets preying on the same shipping they sometimes insured. This was so during both periods of open hostility as well as the Twelve Year Truce.51 There is no doubt that the necessity of insuring against attacks at sea drove up transaction costs. However, it is less clear that this provided clear advantages or disadvantages to any particular group. Many ships transporting sugar were themselves Dutch, or partly owned by Dutch investors who might suffer from the predations of their fellow countrymen.52 Furthermore, although Amsterdam was a large and important market for insurance, it was not the only one. If Portuguese merchants used the insurance market in Amsterdam, it was likely because of its excellent reputation and because they already had an investment presence there, not because there were no other options. The fact that Portuguese merchants also sold insurance in Amsterdam further complicates any analysis based on national interest.53 Rather it seems that insurance policies for Portuguese merchants continued in Amsterdam after 1621 simply because it was impossible to enforce their prohibition, given the informal nature of the business, its inter-imperial dimensions and the still weak institutional context of the business. Aside from difficulties arising to the business of insurance from political circumstances was a more endemic problem. The wide investment and geographic dispersal of insurance markets—as well poor information—often led to fraud. The notarial archives in Amsterdam show several such disputes over insurance. News of a ship being captured or lost at sea could trickle unevenly into European ports and might reach different insurers at different times. This fact, coupled with the merchant practice of only first insuring cargoes long after a voyage was underway, led to accusations of abuses. Around 1619 the notable Porto-based merchant, Francisco de Cáceres, asked his son in Amsterdam, Simão Rodrigues de Cáceres, to arrange for an additional 100 Flemish pounds of insurance on the ship the Hoope—mentioned above—whose arrival in Porto was expected with a cargo of sugar from Rio de Janeiro. Cáceres the younger placed the order through his compatriot and correspondent in Amsterdam, José Pinto, who in turn arranged insurance from Daniel and Jan van Gheel, well-known

51 Costa has suggest that this amounted to a type of tribute that drove up costs for Portuguese shippers to the advantage of Dutch merchants: Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:230. 52 Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 317. 53 Barbour, Capitalism in Amsterdam, 34.

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insurers on the Amsterdam market. News of the capture of the Hoope by French corsairs arrived soon after in Amsterdam. Simão Rodrigues de Cáceres and José Pinto were then suspected of fraud, and they swore to an Amsterdam notary in April of 1619 that the elder Cáceres had no knowledge of the loss of the ship when he requested additional insurance on the Amsterdam market.54 Whether purchased in good faith or not, this type of last minute insurance blurred the distinction between calculated risk dispersal and betting. Another form of insurance fell unequivocally on the side of gambling. This was insurance “on good or bad tidings” and could be arranged between merchants when the return of a ship was in some doubt towards the end of a trading expedition. Policies could cost from 12 to 20% of the value of a cargo for inter-European travel, and upwards of 35% for trips to the colonies. The Antwerp merchant Pedro Clarisse insured Manuel Matheus in Lisbon at 33% on 10,000 reis of merchandise loaded on the Santa Cruz, whose arrival was nervously expected from Bahia. Within a few hours of the writing of the policy, the ship arrived, netting Clarisse 3,300 reis.55 With medieval antecedents, the loan on bottomry conditions continued to be practiced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries alongside insurance as a means of mitigating risk. This technique combined the qualities of insurance and finance. Essentially, it was a loan on the value of a ship or cargo, or both. If a trading journey was completed, the borrower was required to pay back the loan within a specified period of time, along with a premium. However, if the cargo or ship were lost, the risk was to the creditor. In Portugal, these loans existed in both the Atlantic and Asian trade routes. According to Boyajian, in the Asia trade it often involved the advance sale of the Asian merchandise at a fixed price, and so functioned as a type of futures trading, with the risk for the receiver. Boyajian has estimated the premium on bottomry contracts in the Asia trade as averaging 25% in the seventeenth century. He suggests that for slaving or sugar voyages the premium was typically 6–16% and in the Asia trade about 25%.56 These estimates are not reliable, for in this kind of financing the premium could vary wildly.

54 55 56

GAA, NA, no. 645, 668–669. Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 318–9. Boyajian, Portuguese Trade in Asia, 120–1.

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The Amsterdam notarial records reveal some contracts for loans on bottomry conditions for vessels traveling to Brazil. In these cases, premiums were much higher. Premiums rising as high as 50 or 60% reflect the risk of sailing a Dutch vessel to Brazil during times of embargo. On the other hand, profit from selling sugar must have been high enough to warrant the risk, at least for some. Notably among the examples in Table 6.2, the voyage contracted in 1603 probably reflects a lower premium while the Spanish trade embargo was temporarily lifted. Only five of these types of contracts for Brazil travel are found in the Amsterdam archives for this period, making it hard to generalize about their frequency or typicality. In Portugal, bottomry contracts (créditos a risco) were judged by the state, along with other risk-dispersal techniques, as fostering cowardice among captains and their crews, since they were protected by insurance.57 These contracts were prohibited for the Indian route in 1609, and the prohibition was generalized for the entire kingdom in 1623.58 Nevertheless, they persisted. Costa has found seven such contracts in the notarial archives of Lisbon and Porto in the period up to 1630.59 Again, the frequency of such contracts cannot be easily deduced through surviving archival records. Costa believes that they became more common for sugar routes after the WIC invasion of Pernambuco, and found that premiums sometimes reached 100%, reflecting the greater risk of sailing during this period.60 Nevertheless, loans on bottomry conditions were probably made from the beginning of the trade in Brazil.61

57 The king in 1623 wrote that ships fell to the enemy “sem se defenderem delles como podorão fazer se tem por cousa certa que a causa disto era de os homens do mar tomarem dinheiro a responder a risco dos ditos navios e embarcações e cascos delles” Quoted in Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:234. 58 Ibid. 59 Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 2:191–216. 60 This is confirmed in the case of a bottomry loan made by Lisbon merchant Francisco de Palácios to Francisco Borges Veiga from Porto at a rate of 105%. The loan was on the security of a pataco that was to sail to Angola, Brazil and then Lisbon around 1630. IANTT, IL, Processo de Francisco de Palácios, No. 4481. Another such loan was made around 1618 with a premium of 47% on a return trip from Porto to Rio de Janeiro. IANTT, IL, Processo de Álvaro de Azevedo, no. 728. Also: Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:231. 61 Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 2:191–229. Costa has found around 70.

transactions and risk management Year

Lenders

Borrowers

1597 Nicolaes Du Gardijn, Jude Bovenhuid, Nicolaes Balessel 1597 Claes Sys, Hendrick Mieuss Torgans, both Amsterdam 1600 Duarte Fernandes, Pieter Belten, Hans van Uffelen 1603 Jasper Quingeth

1620 Jorge Tomás, Amsterdam, for account of Gil Lopes Pinto, Antwerp

Table 6.2

Ship/ Projected Voyage

127

Cargo Amount/Premium/ Terms

Dirck Willemss Pastoor, Edam

Roode Leeuw/ Zeeland- n/a Lisbon-North AfricaCadiz or CanariesBrazil-Lisbon or Holland or Zeeland Jan Jansz ’t Swart Vercken / n/a Meijns, captain, Zeeland-LisbonHoorn Brazil-Lisbon

1,200 guilders / 60% / 16–20 days upon return

Pieter Oosten, captain, Manuel de Sa, master Jan Jacopsen

50 pounds / 50% / 8–14 days upon return

Manuel Fernandes, captain, Madeira

St Franciscus / n/a Vlissingen-MadeiraBahia-Portugal or Amsterdam St Jacop, and St. Jan n/a Babtista / AmsterdamLisbon or Setubalpossibly Brazil-possibly Portugal or Italy São Francisco / n/a Amsterdam-MadeiraBrazil-Lisbon

852 guilders / 50% / 10–12 days upon return

2,400 guilders / 24% in Lisbon, 28 % if Pisa, 30% if Venice / 8–14 days upon return 22 Flemish pounds / 45% / 20–30 days upon return.

Records for loans on bottomry conditions in the GAA—trips to Brazil

Sources: GAA, NA, no. 625, 539–540; no. 645, 991; no. 76, 208; no. 95, 143; no. 76, 167V; no. 76, 187V; no. 85, 193.

In spite of a more felicitous environment for dispersing risk and conducting trade over long distances, networks sometimes failed, and merchants lost their capital. Added to the risk of investments gone sour were the periodic crackdowns of the Holy Office on the New Christian communities in Portugal and Brazil. Some merchants recovered, but others, such as Francisco de Palácios, described in Chapter 4, were destroyed for good.62 These crackdowns could radiate across Europe and the Atlantic World, causing hardship for countless associates, as was the case after the Inquisition’s mass arrests of merchants in Portugal in 1618. That same year Portuguese merchants in Amsterdam claimed that they had lost 539,071 guilders (78,410,327 reis) to confiscations by the Holy Office of goods in possession of their correspondents in Portugal. A

62

IANTT, IL, Processo de Francisco de Palácios, no. 4481.

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majority of these confiscations were of Brazilian sugar.63 Clearly many networks came under strain, and some probably collapsed. The Brazilian sugar trade, as did long-distance trade in general, benefited from several developments in the Early Modern world, and was itself a part of that development. It began at a propitious time in the development of financial transactions in Europe. By the time Brazilian sugar entered European markets, many of the financial tools that characterize modern capitalism were becoming common, especially in the areas where sugar was most heavily marketed. Paper money, in the form of letters of credit and exchange had achieved a high level of negotiability, owing to the efforts of merchant associations backed by laws in the towns that served as the chief money markets of Europe, such as Antwerp and Amsterdam. These financial tools were highly characteristic of the sugar trade and made it possible to do business in Brazil, where specie was rare. The exploding volume of trade in sugar over the Atlantic accompanied a period of growth in trade in general. At the same time there was an expansion in the supply of specie in Europe, and a lowering of the cost of money. Generous terms of credit were commonplace by the end of the sixteenth century. The northern European money markets offered particularly good terms for loans, with discounts and long periods for repayment. Merchants involved in the sugar trade took advantage of these credit facilities either directly or through correspondents and relatives. The sugar trade also benefited from the more widespread techniques of risk-dispersal, even if they were not always new. Although the sugar trade expanded during a period of increased access to capital at cheaper prices, the early phase was also associated with greater risk at sea, owing to pirates and privateers. Risk management techniques in the form of diversified portfolios, insurance and loans on bottomry conditions spread the risk among large numbers of merchants and over political borders. Amsterdam emerged as a major insurance center in the seventeenth century, but insurance was still not a highly specialized function, and merchants could arrange for policies in many different markets. Piracy

63 ARA, SG (Liassen admiraliteiten) 12561.31: “Declaratie van de schaden bij de Portugeesen tot Amsterdam resideerende geleeden in Portugal door hun factooren ende vrienden door de Inquisitie gevangen ofte gevlucht, ende alle de goederen hun lieden, ende de Voorgs. Portugeesen toecoomende gesequestreert.” Thanks to Victor Enthoven for directing me towards the latter source.

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and privateering drove costs up for everyone, but these costs were eventually so widely distributed that it is difficult to say whether there were clear winners or losers in the insurance markets. At the least, risk management techniques allowed for the persistence of a valuable long distance trade through sometimes perilous waters.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ILLEGAL TRADE This chapter considers the Brazilian sugar trade that took place outside of legally sanctioned channels. This was a business that tried to operate beyond the reach of customs houses and officials, government regulations, and treaties between governments concerning trade. I have tried to take a very broad definition of illegal trade and treat it more as a category of analysis than a precise definition. For purposes of this analysis I include an assessment first of ‘contraband’ trade, a category that includes trading along prohibited routes and in prohibited places, and the evasion of customs rules in various ports. The second part of the chapter turns to piracy and privateering. I have made the usual distinction between piracy and privateering in which the latter is understood as a manifestation of state policy that is authorized with letters of reprisal. However, I agree with other scholars that the distinction between piracy and privateering is thin and often a matter of perspective between the perpetrator and the victim.1 Such a study presents fairly obvious problems of quantification. In the case of ships seized at sea by political enemies or pirates, it is possible to estimate roughly the quantities of commodities passing out of officially sanctioned trade routes, since evidence often survives in contemporary accounts and insurance claims. However, when insiders were involved in trade fraud, the results are probably impossible to measure. Smuggling obviously was done as discreetly as possible. Nevertheless, Dutch and Portuguese archives yield sufficient material to describe the kinds of fraud that existed on sugar routes. These descriptions follow, even though it is impossible to assert with total confidence how representative they are. 1 Anne Pérotin-Dumon states that “the dispute about whether someone should be called a pirate or not is really about who has the power.” in “The pirate and the emperor: power and the law on the seas, 1450–1850,” in The Political Economy of Merchant Empires, ed. James D. Tracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 204. For a general discussion of violence and power in an economic context see: Frederic C. Lane, “Economic Consequences of Organized Violence,” Journal of Economic History 18, no. 4 (1958): 401–17.

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What is the significance of illegal trading in the context of the larger argument of this work? The same conditions that permitted interimperial integration in the commercialization of Brazilian sugar left the trade open to fraud and piracy. When merchants decided to evade the laws of a particular kingdom they presumably did so—not only because of perceived opportunities—but also based on considerations of risk of seizure of goods, imprisonment, or damage to their reputations and future opportunities to trade. The inter-imperial networks that facilitated the Brazilian sugar trade did not always follow the rules that were laid down by the states linked by this commodity chain. Indeed, the market provided its own impetus to patterns of trade, sometimes in accordance with imperial dictates and sometimes not. It might seem strange, for example, that merchants in Amsterdam pursued contraband trade in Brazilian sugar with Portuguese counterparts, even after the Dutch Republic had launched a war against Brazil through its proxy, the WIC. But the contradiction vanishes when the perspective of the state is removed. Merchants were parts of international networks grounded in personal relationships, experience, shared confidence, and knowledge of markets. They responded as much to the opportunities and risks inherent in their own networks as much as to those coming from the state. This chapter isolates and describes the factors that might enter into the decisions of individual merchants or groups of merchants trading ‘illegally’. It also shows that so-called ‘illegal’ trade is a vital part of the story of the transnational integration of the Atlantic economy. Indeed the persistence of trade even against state prohibitions and in times of war is vivid testimony to the limited role of states in organizing and regulating this trade. Geographic realities were a highly important variable for the issue of illegal trade; the Brazilian sugar trade was an Atlantic trade, which meant that it was very difficult to control. No early-modern European state had sufficient resources to impose a rigorous system of protection in an Atlantic economy characterized by a large and decentralized port system, although several states would attempt it. In the period to 1630 the Spanish had partly managed to achieve a centralized trading system with the convoy fleet system that brought Zacatecas and Potosí silver in well-armed order to Seville in most years. The convoy only failed in 1628 when the silver fleet fell to WIC admiral Piet Heyn, although the system was otherwise also open to contraband trading. Silver production was somewhat easier to control, since it was centralized. Production in Brazil, by contrast, was usually spread out

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over a massive coastline. Brazilwood, for example, was susceptible to clandestine trade. Dutch and Flemish smugglers in the years 1590 to 1620 visited the under-populated captaincies of Ilhéus, Cabo Frio and Maranhão to load brazilwood, and they left compatriots on the coast who would learn the local languages and arrange for future cargoes. Brazilwood grew freely on these coasts, and local Portuguese residents and administrators were often happy to offer assistance in illegal trade.2 For merchants who wished to lower their costs by stealthily avoiding the legal taxes on the sugar trade or avoiding the legally prescribed trade routes, the geographic dispersal of the trade was helpful. There were always possibilities for prohibited shippers to receive a warm welcome in a small or remote port where the government presence was limited or non-existent, and collusion between merchants and government officials to circumvent the rules was sometimes hard to prevent. Additionally, goods could, in theory, be trans-shipped at an intermediary port such as one of the Atlantic islands, or just sail directly to a market elsewhere in Europe to avoid the taxing infrastructure of the Portuguese metropolis. In regards to contraband trade, it is also worthwhile to consider the evolving legal framework for trade in Brazil and the level of enforcement of existing laws that conditioned contraband trade. As discussed in Chapter 3, trade in Brazil was initially free, at least to other Catholic lands. Don Sebastian placed restrictions on foreign traders in 1571, at a fairly early phase of Brazilian production, and these were renewed under Philip II twenty years later. Still, in practice foreign ships continued to sail to Brazil in considerable numbers before 1605. In particular, large ships from Hamburg and other Baltic ports transported sugar to Portugal, partly to make up for the massive losses of the Portuguese merchant marine to English privateers.3

Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 136. Some English merchants continued to trade peacefully with the Portuguese after the union of the Iberian crowns, especially in the Azores. Scammell reports that two English ships under Portuguese command sailed to the Azores in 1587 with the intention to exchange textiles for wine. This was to be traded for slaves in Africa and then sugar in Brazil, which was to return to London. It is not known if the journey was completed. This kind of trade could not have been common, for sugar prices were already declining in England as a result of so much sugar entering via privateers and pirates. If illegal trade did continue between the Azores and England after 1580 it was likely oriented towards trade in commodities such as cloth and woad. Scammell, “The English in the Atlantic Islands,” 310–11. See also: Mello, “Os livros de saídas das urcas.” 2 3

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These visits were not necessarily illegal; if properly licensed, there was no obstacle for foreign travel to Brazil. However, it appears that foreign ships sometimes committed fraud in another way, which probably contributed to the general ban on foreign shipping in Brazil in 1605. Portuguese officials became concerned that some Hanseatic vessels had sailed directly back to northern Europe from Brazil, bypassing the Portuguese metropolis. In 1590, 11 ships sailed to Hamburg directly from Brazil. By 1602 at least 19 had done so. In 1602, three ships from Lübeck returned directly back there from Brazil without visiting a Portuguese port, spawning a lengthy lawsuit.4 These ships had been licensed to trade but had broken the terms of their licenses by failing to return to Portugal to unload their cargoes. The Portuguese government was not always able to prevent this abuse. There was a system of sureties to guarantee that foreign ships would return to Lisbon, but this did not always work out as prescribed.5 A Dutch ship’s clerk described his ordeal in Cadiz in 1597 at the hands of Portuguese customs agents. Two ships, the Roode Leeuw, and Swarte Vercken planned a trip encompassing Lisbon, Cadiz, North Africa, the Atlantic Islands and Brazil, a typical trading pattern for this period. After carrying sugar from Lisbon to Ceuta, the ships anchored in Cadiz in order to load wine and oil for a journey to Pernambuco. Although claiming to have licenses to travel to Brazil, the ships were pursued by a Lisbon customs official, Diego Lopes Caminho, who claimed that they had not left a surety in Lisbon and should pay 20% of the value of their outgoing goods. After disputing the charge, the captain of the Roode Leeuw along with the clerk was imprisoned in Cadiz until the merchants who had freighted the vessels arrived to pay the surety and set them free. In this case, things turned out well for Portuguese tax collectors, but the incident shows that merchants and crews were sometimes prepared to abuse the legal system for sailing to Brazil.6 It is impossible to know exactly how frequently merchants and cap-

Kellenbenz, “Der Brasilienhandel der Hamburger ‘Portugiesen’,” 317–8. GAA, NA, no. 197, 173–4. 6 GAA, NA, no. 79, 8V–12. After the captain and clerk of the “Roode Leeuw” were imprisoned, the captain of the “het Swarte Vercken” sailed from Cadiz in order to avoid the same intervention by customs officials. The remaining crewmembers of the “Roode Leeuw” followed. When the freighters arrived to pay the surety, they found the ships gone with no clear idea of the destination. In fact they had returned north and sold the wine and oil in England, claiming that the owners of the cargo were Spaniards and enemies. 4 5

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tains evaded the rules before 1605, but presumably the majority of ships leaving Brazil returned to Portugal to unload. The Baltic and North Sea hulks were of very large capacity, and were probably underutilized on trips returning from Brazil. These ships were built for the classic bulk trades in grain and salt. Furthermore, as we have seen, they often made voyages to Brazil while wintering in southern ports, waiting for the thaws in the north that would allow return voyages. Profit potentially could be made every time a cargo was exchanged in a new port, and so it made sense for northern captains to return to Portugal and load salt or other commodities, along with sugar, for return voyages. Still, factors affecting profitability could vary widely even over a short period of time. From time to time, merchants and captains decided that their best chances for profit lay in evading the prescribed system of trade. When European vessels did sail illegally to Brazil in order to engage in contraband trade, their reception could be mixed. In 1606 Sebastião da Rocha received an English ship with trade goods off the coast of Pernambuco in spite of efforts of the governor, Alexandre de Moura, to prevent the trading. This is revealed in a document that also reports illicit Dutch and French trading in the region.7 The English continued to make at least a few contraband voyages to less populated parts of Brazil after 1610.8 On the other hand, foreigners were not always welcome to trade on the Brazilian coast. In the 1580s residents of the Brazilian coast must have been alarmed at the arrival in heavily armed foreign ships of Hawkins and Drake, even if they professed motives of peaceful trade. Among the northern European nations trading illegally with Brazil, the Dutch deserve special consideration. They were the most heavily targeted by Habsburg trade policies, which were in force in Brazil after 1580. The beginning of Dutch-flagged shipping in Brazil is not clear, but probably there was no significant presence of Dutch ships in Brazil before 1580 when the Spanish and Portuguese crowns were united. Dutch shipping was subject to a general embargo from 1585 to 1590, but this was mainly an ineffective measure. There was at least some trading in the period until 1598 when the embargo was renewed, this time with stronger enforcement. After 1605, all foreign shipping was

7 Frédéric Mauro, ed., Le Bresil au XVII e Siecle. Documents inédits relatifs à L’Atlantique Portugais (Coimbra: University Press, 1963), 225–6. 8 Scammell, “British Smuggling in the Iberian Americas,” 148.

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banned from Brazil, but shortly after this—during the Twelve Year Truce—the Dutch Republic became one of the chief destinations for Brazilian goods. It is not entirely surprising that some Dutch merchants attempted to trade directly, even during the Truce. When the Truce expired in 1621, illegal trade appears to have expanded considerably. Dutch ships began to appear in Brazilian harbors between 1580 and 1605, although it is not always clear whether they were trading legally. In the Amsterdam notarial archives at least 19 records make explicit mention of Dutch ships and shippers traveling or planning to travel to Brazil before 1598.9 This probably represents only a fraction of the total, which perhaps was closer to 100.10 Some ships obtained royal permission to travel.11 However, during periods of lax vigilance, surely some of them traveled illegally. A projected trip—celebrated in a bottomry contract in 1597—stipulated that the Edam captain, Dirck Willemss Pastoor should sail the Roode Leeuw from Zeeland to Lisbon, North Africa, Cadiz or the Canary Islands, Brazil and then back to Lisbon. According to the contract, if he heard that his ship might be subject to arrest he was to return directly to Zeeland or Holland.12 If they did not or could not obtain permission to sail, captains gathered as much information about conditions en route as possible in order to ascertain the level of risk. Captain Claes Claessen from Amsterdam sailed from Hamburg to Lisbon on a voyage freighted by Adam Hulscher of Antwerp in 1590. He was to receive further orders from Hulscher’s correspondent in Lisbon about a projected trip to Brazil but was forced to return north because of the royal ban on travel there.13 Presumably officials in Lisbon did not let him sail, perhaps because of the Dutch origins of the ships and shipper. Dutch merchants who had a wide international ambit of correspondents could overcome these obstacles. In 1594, the above-mentioned Adam Hulscher, now in Amsterdam, declared to a notary that he had done considerable business importing Brazilian goods through, among

9 GAA, NA, no. 72, 25; no. 208; no. 51, 88; no. 54, 36V; no. 54, 130; no. 95, 143; no. 8, 21; no. 42, 84V; no. 47, 6; no. 32, 176; no. 47, 96V; no. 48, 21; no. 32, 340; no. 73, 5–7; no. 50, 39V; no. 76, 187V; no. 51, 79; no. 52, 101V; no. 79, 8V–12. 10 This is the figure given by: E. van den Boogaart, “La expansión holandesa en el atlántico, 1580–1800,” in Los neerlandeses en el mundo comercial atlántico de la Doble Monarquía Ibérica, 1590–1621, ed. E. van den Boogaart (Madrid: Niel-Gerond, 1992), 76–77. 11 GAA, NA, no. 79, 8V–12. 12 GAA, NA, no. 76, 208. 13 GAA, NA, no. 42, 84V.

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others, his brother Evert Hulscher in Brazil. He also had relatives in the Canary Islands and Antwerp. He freighted goods in both Dutch and Portuguese ships, but given his connections it seems likely that he either could try to pass off the former as Flemish or German ships, or that he was able to obtain licenses.14 After 1598, when a shipping ban against the Dutch was renewed and enforcement efforts were heightened, Dutch ships could only travel to Brazil with falsified passports. The re-opening of traffic to Brazil temporarily in 1603 saw the resumption of some Dutch shipping, but did little to halt a sharply downward trend for the decade.15 Nevertheless, some flow of sugar into Amsterdam was maintained, and some Amsterdam merchants took part. One prominent name in the Amsterdam sugar trade in this decade was Cornelis Snellinck, who is described in Chapter 4. Snellinck sometimes contracted Dutch ships to make trips to Portugal and Brazil, but he and others seem usually to have perpetuated the fiction that the ships were German, and these ships usually sailed from Emden.16 After 1609, when the flow of sugar resumed to the Netherlands legally, the economic logic of these kinds of journeys was reduced. But some illegal trade still continued. An account from 1609 vividly reveals the ambiguous border between contraband trade and piracy. Amsterdam merchant, Louis del Becque, chartered a large and heavily armed ship the Lieffde, captained by Pieter Michielsen, to sail to Paraiba or Pernambuco for trade. En route the Lieffde encountered a Portuguese caravel leaving Brazil carrying a sugar cargo. Upon boarding, the Dutch crew learned from the Portuguese mariners that they could not trade with the Brazilian population without risk to life, ship and goods. The Dutch captain determined, instead, to trade at sea and took the cargo of sugar in exchange for some luxury cloths and broadcloth. Later he arranged a similar exchange for a sugar cargo from another Portuguese caravel that he encountered on the open sea. The entire crew of the Lieffde testified to a notary in Amsterdam that these were friendly transactions.17 Others disagreed. Four merchants in Amsterdam testified a

GAA, NA, no. 47, 6. A few such journeys are indicated in GAA, NA, no. 98, 21V. 16 GAA, NA, no. 98, 133V; no. 35, 111; no. 104, 209. 17 GAA, NA, no. 196, 299–301V. Louis del Becque, originally from Lille, had lived in Amsterdam since 1587 where he was an experienced trader to the Iberian Peninsula. Koen, “Notarial Records,” 2, no. 2 (1968): 265. 14 15

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few months later to the same notary that the trading coordinated by Louis del Becque was coerced trade.18 Trans-shipment, they claimed, was not practiced because Portuguese officials punished it severely. Furthermore, they had not heard of the Portuguese allowing it to happen on a friendly basis with vessels of any nation, neither in the Canary Islands or elsewhere. One merchant, Pieter Dumolijn, claimed that in Lisbon he had heard complaints about this kind of forced trade by ships freighted by Louis del Becque.19 Another Dutch trip to the coast of Brazil in 1614 revealed both the hope of some that the Portuguese would trade freely with illegal Dutch ships and the frustration of those hopes. The VOC fitted out a fleet of six ships commanded by Joris van Spilbergen, including two 600-ton warships and a total of 750 sailors and soldiers. The stated purpose of the journey, encouraged by the States General, was to explore the route to the Pacific via the Straits of Magellan. Another hope was to trade on the southwest coast of America. Although trade with Brazil did not figure as a major goal of this endeavor, the fleet arrived on the coast of Brazil at the end of the year seeking fresh provisions.20 Spilbergen knew that his fleet would not be well received in any of the major ports of Brazil, so he first landed a party on Ilha Grande near Rio de Janeiro to obtain fresh water. There his landing party was attacked and several were killed by an armed party of “Portuguese and mestizos,” while others were taken prisoner.21 In mid-January the ship sailed southwest to Santos in São Vicente Bay, hoping to obtain more provisions. Here the reception was mixed, as the Portuguese settlers regarded the fleet warily. Some provisions were secretly bartered, but the leaders of the Dutch fleet soon realized that there was no advantage

18 Pieter Beltgens, Jan Jansz Backer, Jacob Geurts Cleijnsorch and Pieter Dumolijn deposed at the request of Amsterdam Portuguese merchants Gasper Lopes Homem, Duarte Fernandes, and Sebastião Rodrigues de Leão, GAA, NA, no. 196, 325– 326V. 19 Dumolijn claimed “dat voor sijn vertreck van Lisboa de clachten aldaer sijn gecommen vant nemen van de carvelen bij de schepen van Louwys Beeckque ende dat zij haar goet door bedwanck gelost hadde.” Ibid. These various notarized testimonies probably indicate some kind of dispute among merchants about del Becque’s activities, which may have hurt Amsterdam merchants with an interest in ordinary shipping between Brazil and Portugal. 20 Warnsinck, ed., De reis om de wereld van Joris van Spilbergen, 1614–1617, XXXVI– XLIX. 21 Ibid., 8.

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to staying in Santos and felt that the Portuguese residents seemed intent only on ‘deceitful’ behavior.22 Incidents such as these cast doubt on the frequently made—but unsubstantiated—claims in the historical literature that the Dutch merchant marine was heavily involved in the carrying trade in Brazilian sugar during the Twelve Year Truce. It was inevitable that some Dutch ships trying to pass as Portuguese would sail to Brazil during the Truce, but there is no evidence that many did so. Dutch captains faced harsh penalties if discovered by officials and were not generally likely to have received an amiable reception in Brazil ports.23 One captain, Engel Habet sailed the 180–ton ship the Hoope—discussed in Chapter 6—from Amsterdam to Porto.24 From there he planned to sail to Rio de Janeiro to buy sugar, and he had even hired a Portuguese crew. Unfortunately for him, the Portuguese government commandeered his ship to carry the new governor of Rio de Janeiro along with his family across the ocean. The governor, Rui Vaz Pinto, discovered the fraud while he was on board, since there were five Dutchmen traveling along including Engel Habet and his brother. Once in Rio de Janeiro, Habet and his constable were imprisoned.25 The significance of the voyage of the Hoope is clear. Probably it was not completely anomalous, and other Dutch ships intending to make such journeys may have had better luck. But illegal travel to Brazil was beset with risks. At the very least, a Portuguese crew would have to be maintained on such a journey. Some Dutch ships were actually licensed to travel to Brazil after 1609, but not in significant numbers. According to Stols, in the entire period from 1609 to 1687, Portuguese officials granted licenses to only

22 Ibid., 11–20. During one landing party, the Dutch discovered an engenho, that they learned had been built by none other than the Antwerp merchant Hans de Schot! Sugar cane grew thick nearby, but the mill’s owners had fled, taking their equipment with them. “Corts daer nae zijn wy opwaerts geroeyt in de riviere, alwaer wy vonden eene ingenie, in de welcke zy altemael met hare meubelen ghevlucht waeren, zijnde de selve inghenie groot, sterck, wel ghebouw’t ende bewoont, hebbende eene kercke ghenaemt Signora de Negues; wy verstonden vande Portugijsen datse ghebouw’t was van een seecker gheslacht van Antwerpen ghenaemt de Schotsen; hier ontrent was het seer playsant, ende de plaetse rontomme was rijck van suycker-riet.” 15–6. 23 One Dutch merchant trying to sail cloth clandestinely in Pernambuco in March of 1621 failed to find enough buyers. Koen, “Notarial Records,” 20, no. 1 (1986): 117–18. 24 This ship is mentioned in the previous chapter in the context of insurance, since it eventually left Rio with a cargo of sugar and was taken by French pirates. 25 GAA, NA, no. 381, 300; no. 460, 386–386V; no. 381, 485. They were not the only ‘framengos’ to be imprisoned in Brazil around this time for illegal trading. See Livro Primeiro do Governo do Brasil, 1607–1633, 130–3, 168.

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16 Flemish, 17 Dutch and 48 other foreigners whose nationality cannot be determined. This permission for foreign traders, captains, sailors and their boats to travel to Brazil was always temporary and was of an exceptional nature.26 Habet’s choice of Rio de Janeiro as a destination is telling, since the regulating presence of the Spanish/Portuguese crown was less present there than in the busier ports of Pernambuco and Bahia. In another case—in Espírito Santo in 1617—some customs officials and merchants conspired to avoid paying dízimos on outgoing sugar cargoes. This incident came to the attention of the crown, which recommended harsh punishments.27 Playing loose with the rules must have been common in smaller ports and could certainly work to the advantage of contraband traders. Also, some evidence points to trans-shipment initiated by the Portuguese using the Atlantic Islands. Some ships leaving Brazil would land in the Azores on São Miguel and Terceira under pretext of storm or pursuit by pirates, and there they would unload for transshipment to northern Europe without paying duties.28 Nevertheless, it is impossible to know how widespread these activities were. In spite of opportunities for fraud, there were reasons to play by the rules. The trade in Brazilian sugar was relatively lightly regulated. Moreover, though sugar production was not as centralized as silver production in the New World, it did tend to group around a few major ports, so some controls were possible. Sugar production was usually riverine, and the bulk of production flowed along rivers through cities such as Salvador and Recife, where the taxing and regulating authority of the state was well represented. Once departed from Brazil, ships carrying sugar were required to return to Portugal, but this made economic sense as well. The nearest European ports were in Portugal, which itself was a centralized trans-shipment region for both northern European and Mediterranean markets. Additionally, in spite of the taxes

Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 115. The crown wrote: “E indo a ella desta reino direito em cadanno tres e quatro navios caregados de fazendas numqua se arecadarão direitos dellas nem os oficiaes da Alfandega fazião por isso diligencia alguma por receberem gros sospeittas das pesoas cujas erão as dittas fazendas e quasi se caregarão em cada hum anno mais de vinte mill cruzadas em asuqeres por liberdade não ouzando della sem os dittos oficiaes acuidirem disso por parte de minha fazenda tendo obrigacão de o fizer por rezão de seus cargos e que não ha senhorio de emgenho que mudando nelle dous esteos não tenha gozado de duas liberdades no que outro sy se tem levado muitos direitos aminha fazenda.” AHU, Espírito Santo, Papeis Avulsos, Caixa 1, doc. 4. 28 Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 65. 26 27

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(at least 20%) that accrued to sugar in the Portuguese metropolis, prices were usually high enough before 1630 to guarantee a high premium of arbitrage (see Chapter 8). A less restrictive trade regimen characterized by high profits did not necessarily invite cheating. Once the Truce expired—accompanied by the most aggressive efforts yet by the Habsburg crown to deny imperial products to Dutch markets—the Dutch had a much greater motivation to trade illegally. Subsequently, there was a wholesale return to the system of fraudulent passports. One Amsterdam merchant, Tomás Nunes Pina, continued to arrange for shipments of Brazilian goods after 1621 through his Viana factor, Gaspar Caminho Rego, who ostensibly sent them on to Hamburg.29 Smuggling was also rampant after 1621 and helped to ensure some commodity flow. During a four-month period, eight Dutch ships visited ports in the Algarve and Andalusia, with the connivance of Portuguese merchants from Santiago de Compostela, Antwerp, Hamburg and Amsterdam.30 Amsterdam notarial records indicate other illegal Dutch voyages made later in the decade involving trans-shipment of sugar in ports in the Azores. These were ‘intended’ voyages, documented in freight contracts, so it difficult to say how frequently this kind of trade was actually conducted.31 Once the WIC was successfully installed in Pernambuco it seems unlikely that merchants based in the Dutch Republic would attempt it. On the other hand, the WIC devoted considerable energies in the 1620s to seizing Brazilian cargoes at sea. Privateers and pirates, another category of Atlantic entrepreneurs, entered into the illegal sugar trade because they were otherwise barred from it owing to political circumstances. Privateers belonged to states that were at war with Portugal and were authorized by letters of reprisal (letters of manqué) issued by their governments to take Brazilmen as prizes. Pirates were traders who operated either outside of the legal control of their home states, or belonged to states that officially sanctioned trading based on the

GAA, NA, no. 646A, 130. Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 15, see note 87. 31 See various in Koen, “Notarial Records,” 34, no. 1 (2000); 35, no. 1 (2001). Trafficking in prohibited Dutch products to Portugal and especially Spain was widespread after the expiration of the truce. This trade was usually mediated by New Christian merchant houses with branches in Portugal, the Dutch Republic and Spain. Customs officials were often complicit in this highly lucrative trade. See: Belinchón, “ ‘Sacar la Sustancia al Reino’,” 1017–50. 29 30

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violent seizure of ships at sea. Both groups found that Atlantic trade was an easy target. In regards to privateering, the earliest threat to ships carrying sugar from Brazil to Portugal in the sixteenth century came from the English. Alongside the French, the English made some early ventures onto Brazilian coasts. In 1530–32, William Hawkins of Plymouth visited Brazil in a 250-ton vessel, having also traded in Guinea. By 1540, he may have completed two more such trips, returning with African ivory and brazilwood. The Portuguese responded in the 1530s with measures to extirpate interlopers in the African trade, but around 1540 a few other Southampton merchants also visited Brazil.32 This early traffic seemed to have involved dyewood, and it dwindled after 1540. English trade ties with Iberia itself remained far more important. Also, trade in Brazil at this juncture did not really attract the great London merchants, who were mainly focused on the Antwerp trade.33 By the 1570s, the situation had changed, and once again some English traders turned towards the idea of direct trade with Brazil. Stirred by André Thevet’s account of the French colony in Guanabara Bay, and emboldened by the collapse of the Anglo-Spanish alliance, men such as Richard Grenville and William and John Hawkins—sons of the abovementioned trader—envisioned expeditions into the south Atlantic. These plans came to fruition with Drake’s celebrated voyage of 1577.34 While Drake’s goal was not Brazil per se, his success and the unification of the Iberian monarchies in 1580 led to plans to counter Spanish hegemony in the southern Atlantic. In 1582 William Hawkins sailed for Brazil in four heavily armed ships that were also freighted with trade items. As it turns out, his fleet never made it to the Brazilian coast. Hawkins learned that a Spanish coast guard protected it, called into action by Drake’s earlier marauding. In 1583 another warship, led by Edward Fenton, called in São Vicente, where it engaged a Spanish armada and later called in Espírito Santo. In both harbors the Portuguese refused to trade. In 1583 another English ship traded in Olinda, but afterwards the Spanish coast guard arrested the English factors in that town, seizing

32 Andrews, Trade, Plunder and Settlement, 59. See also: G.V. Scammell, “British Smuggling in the Iberian Americas Circa 1500–1750,” Itnerario 14, no. 3/4 (2000): 137–8. Scammell exaggerates when he calls sixteenth century direct trade between England and Brazil “flourishing,” 167. 33 Andrews, Trade, Plunder and Settlement, 63. 34 Ibid., 137–42.

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their goods. A final trading expedition by the same group of merchants took place in 1584–5.35 However, these sporadic and mostly unsuccessful efforts ended in 1585 when war broke out. After this, English activities in Brazil were confined to privateering.36 English merchant capital turned to this activity wholesale. Legitimate English traders were damaged by Philip’s confiscation of foreign shipping in Iberian ports in 1585, and this event soon turned into an allpurpose causus belli for would-be English privateers. From 1585 to 1603, letters of reprisal issued from the High Court of Admiralty to scores of venturers, whether they had a legitimate claim from 1585 or not. During this eighteen-year orgy of English plundering, probably some 100 ships sailed from England per year; in some years as many as 200 sailed. This business was organized primarily from the ports of London and the coast from Southampton to Bristol, but as the war progressed, larger boats backed by London’s larger merchant ship owners became more prominent. Some expeditions were organized on small and lightly armed vessels; their crews hoped to board a small ship—such as a caravel—and overwhelm it with superior manpower. Other ventures involved small fleets of large and well-armed ships, backed by large London-based merchants.37 As was often the case during this period, the activities of privateering, piracy and trade were often intertwined. Merchants, captains and seamen involved in privateering had often formerly traded in Iberian ports. Those who had engaged in piracy against Portuguese and Spanish shipping now enthusiastically pursued privateering. Less than scrupulous captains and crews even took prizes from non-Iberian shipping and unloaded illegal goods in Irish or North African ports. This situation led to a flourishing trade between England and North Africa, and it prompted further privateering and piracy as the Iberian-American sealanes were crossed. Ships that were properly equipped with letters of reprisal could not always resist a rich Atlantic prize of any nationality, authorized or not.38 35 Scammell, “British Smuggling in the Iberian Americas,” The author notes that these fitful attempts at direct trade in the 1570s and early 1580s were opposed by English merchants doing business in Lisbon, since they felt it undercut their business. Clearly English merchant interests regarding sugar and brazilwood were not monolithic. 36 Andrews, Trade, Plunder and Settlement, 161–5. 37 Ibid., 245–7. 38 Ibid., 246–7. Merchants in Brazil must have grown wary of all foreign shipping as a result of English predation. One Dutch captain, Cornelis Jansen, negotiating for

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While privateering for the English could be a risky business, it was characterized by a low opportunity cost. England’s regular trade with Antwerp had fallen since the economic crisis of the 1550s and the subsequent decline of that entrepôt. Larger English merchants had subsequently turned partly to importing for the domestic luxury market, a demand easily satisfied through privateering. Also, privateering required manpower, and during the war this was cheap and plentiful. Population pressure and unemployment at home reached a crisis level by the 1590s and led many young men to seek employment on ships, sometimes only with the promise of a share in spoils as wages. This left only victuals and the ship itself as a major expense on some expeditions, and it lowered the capital threshold for entry into the business. Not surprisingly, privateering became a major spur to English shipbuilding in the last decades of the sixteenth century.39 While typical English prizes might comprise bulk commodities such as grain and salt, greater value came from luxury goods. Sugar was the prize par excellence. In just the three years following the defeat of the Armada, English privateers seized thirty-four sugar-bearing ships, with a probable value of well over 100,000 pounds sterling in the English market. The surveyor of the London customs stated in 1593 that “although the Hollanders and the Hamburgers have the only trade of other commodities that the Spanish trade can afford them, yet sugars they cannot have now in any quantity but from us, as the case standeth, by reason of the great quantities taken by reprisal from Spain and Portugal.” Another observer noted in 1598: “the cheapness that all Spanish commodities do now bear in England, having no trade with Spain, that they be for the most part of less price in England than in Spain or the Indias.”40 Spanish peace with France in 1598 and England in 1604 led to a temporary reduction of piracy and privateering preying on Brazilian shipping. However, after 1598 the Dutch—barred from legitimate Portuguese trade—began to be a threat south of the Equator. As early as 1599 war parties were arranged by the College of the Admiralty to

freight with Amsterdam merchant Hans de Schot, refused to sail to Brazil to trade unless he was guaranteed that his freight charge would be paid regardless of whether he landed or not. He worried that he would be barred because of fear of English plundering. GAA, NA, no. 72, 25. 39 Andrews, Trade, Plunder and Settlement, 246–7, 252. 40 Ibid., 250. Both quotes here.

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raid Portuguese possessions in Africa and Brazil. One such party of war ships passed through the Canary Islands and São Tomé in 1599. From there seven ships were sent to raid the coast of Brazil. This effort ended disastrously since most of the crew died from a combination of heat and spoiled provisions.41 The onset of the Twelve Year Truce did not stop Dutch predations in the southern Atlantic. Some Dutch entrepreneurs did not believe that the Truce applied to Brazilian waters, and ships from Zeeland and Holland continued to prey on sugar shipping. This activity affected both Portuguese merchants and their Dutch counterparts who helped to finance Portuguese vessels carrying sugar. One result was frequent protests to the Admiralty Boards in Zeeland and Holland about illegal cargoes of sugar that were unloaded in various ports in these two provinces. This also fueled sharp diplomatic exchanges during the Truce. But the matter was never satisfactorily resolved.42 Yet another threat emerged in the Atlantic shipping lanes between Brazil and Portugal as the Truce went into effect in 1609. Moriscos, newly expelled from Spain, helped to transform Salé into a major center of Atlantic piracy. European mariners sometimes joined ranks with these Muslim pirates.43 Between 1613 and 1621 this North African pirate state took many European prizes including 447 Dutch ships, 193 French, 120 Iberian and 116 English or Hanseatic.44 The resources of the Salé pirates were small, and they tended to sail in small ships, although sometimes they moved in squadrons as large as seventy. For this reason they favored attacking small, lightly armed ships, and caravels were notoriously vulnerable.45 Possibly as a result, European shipbuilders tended to build larger and more heavily armed vessels for Atlantic trade after 1615.46 This was also a major impetus for calls for ships from Brazil to sail in armed convoy.47

GAA, NA, no. 198, 329–329V. Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 111. 43 This was apparently the case with a Dutch ship that was seized by a Dutch pirate working from the Barbary Coast in 1612. GAA, NA, no. 197, 422. See also: Ibid., 311. 44 Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:79. 45 Ibid., 196; Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 309–10; Pauline Croft, “English Mariners Trading to Spain and Portugal, 1558–1625,” The Mariner’s Mirror 69, no. 3 (1983): 255. 46 Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:198. 47 One fleet in 1618 was attempted. AHU, Pernambuco, caixa 1, (November 21, 1618). The Conselho Ultramarino discussed another proposal in 1623 as a response 41 42

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French and English pirates also operated in Brazilian waters, although probably not in great numbers. In 1616 a French pirate vessel—apparently operating out of the Caribbean under a “kapitein Grin”—seized a Portuguese boat laden with sugar that was traveling from Salvador to Viana. After a two-hour battle just 40 miles from the Portuguese coast, the victorious pirates took the ship along with its crew to St. Maarten.48 As described above, the Hoope, fraudulently sailed from Porto to Rio de Janeiro. On the return to Porto in February 1618, she was seized by two French pirate ships and lost her cargo of 560 crates of sugar, 100 hides and 50 tons of conserves.49 Sometimes the predators turned on each other. Hans de Schot freighted a ship—apparently Portuguese—Nossa Senora a Rozaro that had sailed from Brazil to Portugal around 1596. He abandoned the ship to his insurers, declaring that it had been seized in turn by English and French privateers.50 Although the patterns of privateering and piracy are evident, it is more difficult to quantify their effects. Andrews has compiled some statistics for Elizabethan piracy. As mentioned above, he suggests that the total value of sugar seized in the three years after the Armada was well over £100,000 sterling in the English market. Another privateering expedition of three ships led by James Lancaster occupied Recife in April 1595. After taking several prizes at sea, he arrived in Pernambuco and spent one month loading his ships as well as three Dutchmen and five French privateers he found there. The total value of the goods returned was likely over £50,000 sterling.51 This was probably the zenith of English predations, but in 1598 they still took at least 11 prizes, of which four were specifically designated as Brazilmen that included cargoes of sugar.52 One result was to drastically increase the both the supply of and demand for sugar in England. For at least a brief period, sugar was

to “muitos coçarios que nella andão.” AHU, Conselho Ultramarino, Codigo 35, Fol. 187 and subsequent. 48 GAA, NA, no. 379, 604. 49 GAA, NA, no. 381, 485. 50 GAA, NA, no. 49, 271. The insurers were: Heyndrick Hudde, Romboult Jacobs, Gysbregt Bruininx, Berent Rutgersz, Francois Wolfaertsz, Cornelis Schellinger, Heyndrick Ruyter, Hans de Laet, Hans van Gheel, Adriaen du Yardin, Jacob Foreest, Fonger Sierixz, Claes Andriesz, Pieter Herritsz, Delff and Jan Cornelis Vischer. 51 Andrews, Elizabethan Privateering, 210–12. 52 Ibid., 266–72.

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cheap and plentiful as imports increased nearly five-fold.53 Although prices were depressed, this gave a large impetus to a refining industry in London. Its growth slowed once privateering was halted, but while it lasted, the sugar boom must have increased demand, even if it was still not an article of mass consumption.54 Additionally, for those nations that practiced it, privateering helped the development of navies and merchant marines. Privateering also helped the flow of commercial capital from one place to the other, but unfortunately this type of development seldom benefited one country solely, at least not for long. With ships of so many different nations seeking prizes in the Atlantic, one nation’s privateers could easily become another’s victims. A more common result of privateering and piracy was undoubtedly to wreak havoc with prices in the short term. When Piet Heyn plundered Bahia in 1627 he seized 2000 crates of sugar. By June sugar prices in Lisbon rose 25 to 50%. A chain reaction saw sugar rise in price in Antwerp and especially in Hamburg. However, once the booty was brought to Zeeland and sold, prices fell, especially in nearby Antwerp. Lower prices eventually returned to Lisbon.55 European prices for sugar at various links along the commodity chain showed convergence, but at a long rhythm. Short-term swings in prices created winners and losers among merchants, and they must have contributed to a climate of uncertainty. Given the relatively long periods of transport, it was difficult for merchants to respond rapidly to shifts in the market. Even those merchants whose ships were not seized suffered from the heightened risks and costs imposed by illegal trade. On the most obvious level, piracy and privateering devastated merchant shipping. In the case of the sugar trade, the Portuguese merchant marine suffered frightful losses during the war with England, and again after 1625 when the WIC was active. Probably during these periods the loss of ships ran far ahead of the ability of the Portuguese shipyards to replace them. This can be seen in the movement of northern European shipping into the sea-lanes between Portugal and Brazil, where there were not enough Portuguese ships to load the sugar stored in Brazilian

53 54 55

Scammell, “British Smuggling in the Iberian Americas,” 145–6. Andrews, Elizabethan Privateering, 207–9. Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 192–3.

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warehouses. This is further evidence of inter-imperial integration in the sugar trade. However, periods of heavy depredation on the shipping for Brazilian sugar raised transaction costs sharply. Portuguese losses after 1625 were reflected in high freight charges as a loss of supply of shipping drove costs upwards (see Appendix C). Illegal trading happened when merchants or crews avoided the taxing authority of the Portuguese crown, violated strictures against the presence of foreigners in Brazil, or sailed on forbidden routes. The evidence does not generally allow a determination of how common this kind of trading was, but it does permit a qualitative assessment of these kinds of activities. Illegal voyages from Brazil directly to northwestern Europe occurred often enough before 1605 to prompt the crown in that year to permanently forbid foreigners in the colony. Contraband trading appears to have been less common after 1605 although it resumed to some degree after the WIC began serious offensive operations against the Brazilian sugar trade in 1624. Contraband trading networks also demonstrate the inter-imperial integration of the sugar trade. Both piracy and privateering also occurred within the context of an integrated, inter-imperial market for Brazilian sugar, although these activities drove up transaction costs in the Brazilian sugar trade. Privateering arose when certain merchants, ships and crews were forbidden to trade sugar, usually a result of wars between the states whose merchants were involved in this trade. Indeed, state policy in times of war fostered privateering. For the Brazilian sugar trade until 1630, the two major protagonists in seizing Brazilian shipping were the Kingdom of England and the Dutch Republic who plundered Brazilian trade as a specific aim of war. Ironically this ensured commodity flow along its customary channels, as sugar then continued to reach its traditional markets in northwestern Europe. However, when privateering happened on a large scale it often caused violent fluctuations in prices. Piracy was a more endemic, but serious, threat. The organization of piracy is opaque, but it also involved cosmopolitan groups of merchants, and it blended at times into the activity of contraband trading. Although illegal trading did take place, there are no good reasons to assume that it was widespread, at least during the first two decades of the seventeenth century. This is because in peacetime the geographical structure of the trade complemented its legal framework, and the ordinary costs of doing business were not prohibitively high. Since Portugal was on the route to Brazil from northwestern Europe, it made sense to stop there and to coordinate the trade from its geographic

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center, where information was also most current. A stop in Portugal also allowed merchants to buy and sell other goods that were typically traded along these routes. Of course the crown taxed the trade, but taxes were not so onerous as to prevent sugar merchants from making a healthy profit, as discussed in the next chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SUPPLY, DEMAND, PRICES AND PROFITABILITY The presumption in the preceding chapters has been that possibilities for profit drove merchant involvement in the Brazilian sugar trade. What remains to be seen is how profitable the trade actually was. Making profit estimates for an early modern trade with fragmentary information is a tricky business, and my attempt to do so in this chapter constitutes no more than an informed guess. Overheads in merchant firms and other types of transaction costs are opaque in this period. Nevertheless, the groundwork has been laid in the preceding chapters for a reasonable estimate of profit ranges for the sugar trade. Chapters 3 and 5 described some of the principle transaction costs of the trade. This chapter focuses on the premium of arbitrage by looking at sugar prices in the various metropoles that imported it. Comparing prices in different markets and gauging the cost of moving sugar is the fundamental starting point to estimate profitability. The other objective of this chapter is to place sugar in a macroeconomic context. I have argued that the Brazilian sugar trade was an inter-imperial phenomenon, particularly in its investment structure and in the merchant community that engaged in it. However, in at least one aspect the trade can be studied in the context of early modern states. This was in the revenue that sugar brought to the states through which it was traded. Here I will look at the value of sugar taxes in the Kingdom of Portugal and the Dutch Republic, offering some comparisons in order to suggest its importance to their respective economies. I will also try to describe the importance of the sugar trade in general to these economies. The starting point for any study of the economy of Brazilian sugar is production, but, unfortunately, we have little reliable information on this subject. Estimates of Brazilian production have varied widely. Schwartz has argued that production fell typically between 3,000 and 4,000 arrobas per year for most engenhos, excepting the very largest.1 If this is so, one

1 Schwartz, Sugar Plantations, 167. In spite of claims made by contemporaries such as Ambrósio Fernandes Brandão that large mills could produce between 10,000 and

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measure of production can be obtained by counting the number of engenhos in Brazil. Here estimates also vary but confirm strong growth between 1580 and about 1600, and then another period of growth lasting from 1614 through 1630.2 In the first period, the number of engenhos probably expanded from about 100 to 200 and then reached about 350 by the end of the 1620s. At 3,500 arrobas per engenho, this suggests the following figures for Brazilian production. Year

Number of Mills

Production in Arrobas

Cargo Tons (54 arrobas per ton)

1583 1612 1629

115 192 346

402,500 672,000 1,211,000

7,453 12,444 22,425

Table 8.1

Brazilian production in arrobas

Source: Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:174.

What then was the value of this crop? Evidence of sugar prices in the earliest phases of the production of Brazilian sugar comes from a variety of sources, but the series is riddled with gaps. No satisfactory record of sugar prices exists to cover all of the years detailed in this study, and these problems of lacunae in the documentary evidence are probably insurmountable. Still, there are several useful sources. These include price quotes from merchants themselves, which are lamentably few in number. There are also institutional sources, such as figures from customs houses or brokers’ guilds. These allow the building of series showing the movement of prices of sugar over time. In some years these sugar prices can be confirmed by a large number of observations. In other years there is no information, and in others still the sugar price quoted rests upon a single observation. In the latter situation, much of the seasonality of the working of the sugar market is clearly lost. In fact, when the evidence permits a closer view, it appears that sugar markets were often distinguished by strong short-term fluctuations in prices. This should come as no surprise. One possible reason is that, given the limitations of demand, sugar prices responded quickly

12,000 per year, Schwartz has found that this very rarely occurred. Costa has also found these estimates plausible and calculates on the basis of 3,500 per engenho. Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:174. 2 These are estimates based on a variety of sources, sometimes conflicting. Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:169; Schwartz, Sugar Plantations, 168.

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to over-saturation. It seems that if too much sugar arrived on the market at once, prices could quickly drop. This situation was common to other commodities in early modern trade, which explains the rush of merchants to be the first to market when prices were high. The first ships to reach northern markets with the dried fruit harvests of Andalusia and the Algarve could make a tidy profit, but those arriving weeks later were at a disadvantage.3 Prices for grain in Iberia showed the same propensity to fluctuate. Of course, merchants in an entrepôt with a warehouse at their disposal might just sit on their merchandise and wait for a return of high prices. Sugar, properly stored, did not deteriorate too quickly. But given the large number of people trading sugar and the difficulties of coordination, this could be a risky proposition. In 1618, seven Portuguese merchants in Amsterdam served a notice on Jan Bicker, who was in possession of some sugar in which they had an interest. They had repeatedly asked him to sell it and took legal proceedings to force him to do so as prices were dropping and he still refused to sell.4 Behind these fluctuations in prices was, of course, consumer demand. Felipe Fernandez-Armesto has hypothesized that the market for sugar was supply driven, i.e. that the increase in sugar in European markets itself stimulated demand.5 Recent work by Eddy Stols also documents European consumption of sugar in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But still too little is known for sure about how the consumer market for sugar operated in its earliest phases. In the long term, there was clearly an expansion of demand, probably related to economic growth in northwestern Europe and the expansion of elite urban classes.6 Nevertheless, consumer demand operated indirectly. Sugar passed through an industrial process; it was refined in the entrepôt towns where it was collected. Sugar refiners were the first purchasers, and only later was sugar either consumed in the towns where it was produced or shipped to nearby towns and over long distances within Europe. Years could separate the harvesting of sugar in Brazil and its appearance on Koen, “Notarial Records,” 10, no. 2 (1976): 215. Ibid., 13, no. 2 (1979): 239–40. This was on December 3, on which day the price for moscovado per pound was 15 groten (55 reis) and panela 10 (36 reis). One week later moscovado sold for 13 ½ (49 reis), while panela was down to 9 (33 reis). 5 Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food (New York: The Free Press, 2002), 157. 6 Eddy Stols, “The Expansion of the Sugar Market in Western Europe,” in Tropical Babylons: Sugar and the Making of the Atlantic World, 1450–1680, ed. Stuart B. Schwartz (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004). 3 4

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the tables of elite households. Consequently, short-term fluctuations in price were also related to the capacity of sugar refiners to absorb sugar in their factories.7 The other variable influencing price fluctuations was political and military conflict as well as piracy that affected the trade. The last chapter discussed the plundering of the Bahian sugar mills by the WIC squadron led by Piet Heyn in 1627, which temporarily raised the price of sugar in Lisbon by 25 to 50%.8 A similar case had occurred a few years previously when Bahia was temporarily occupied by the WIC. Pedro Clarisse, a Flemish merchant in Lisbon, left a record of the fluctuations in price during this period. Table 8.2 shows prices rising towards the end of 1624 and then falling back at the end of 1625 to nearly the same prices quoted for the beginning of 1624. Here we can clearly see the dearth of sugar in Lisbon caused by the invasion of Bahia in May of 1624 and its subsequent recovery as the region was reconquered in May of the following year. According to the higher prices quoted by Clarisse, in this two-year period the value of white sugar rose by about 43% before sinking. For moscovado and panela the increases were more dramatic still, 60% and 56%, respectively. Clarisse’s price quotes for this period reveal another particularity. There was a possibility of a range of prices for what was—ostensibly— the same product at the same time. There may be several explanations for this. One is that sugar was known to be of different grades and Date 6–1–1624 8–10–1624 8–24–1624 11–16–1624 12–28–1624 1–2–1625 3–17–1625 8–2–1625 11–22–1625 Table 8.2

White

Moscovado

Panela

1,300–1,400 1,500–1,650 1,450–1,500 1,500–1,750 1,600–1,850 1,700–2,000 1,700–2,000 1,400–1,550 1,100–1,350

820–840 1,100–1,050 980–1000 1,060–1,120 1,230–1,280 1,300–1,340 1,300–1,330 950–1,000 800–880

600–610 700 680–700 760–800 800–820 930–950 920–950

Lisbon sugar prices in 1624 and 1625 as quoted by a merchant, reis per arroba

Source: Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, Bijlagen, 203–7.

7 8

Poelwijk, ‘In dienste vant suyckerbacken’, 258–62. Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, 192–3.

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qualities within the looser categorizations of branco, moscovado, and panela.9 Another is the state of the sugar after shipping. Sugar that was wet or had otherwise deteriorated on the sea voyage was a source of frequent conflict between merchants who bought and sold.10 Just as sugar from different regions was valued differently according to reputation, there is some evidence that sugar from Brazil also held different values depending on its origin. In this case it is probable that sugar from Pernambuco was valued the most, sugar from Bahia slightly less, and sugar from Rio de Janeiro the least.11 Date 11–8–1577 1–8–1578 2–4–1578 2–15–1578 3–26–1578 7–26–1578 9–24–1579 5–24–1580 12–14–1580 4–30–1582

Madeira (white) 2,600 2,300–2,400 2,400 2,200 2,400–2,500 2,800 3,000 2,900–3,000

São Tomé (white)

Brazil (moscovado and white)

620–630 640 650–660 660 660 700 750–770

1,300–1,400 1,200–1,300 1,400–1,500 1,300–1,500 1,400–1,500 1,400–1,600 1,800

920 950

1,400–1,650 1,150–1,850

Table 8.3 Price differences in Lisbon according to source: Prices of Madeira, São Tomé and Brazilian sugar as quoted by a Lisbon merchant house (reis per arroba) Source: Uitterdijk, J.N., Een Kamper Handelshuis, 40, 49, 57, 72, 94, 130, 250, 262, 310, 323, 374. Prices quoted in this source do not distinguish between the different grades of sugar, but usually offer different prices, “according to quality (daer nae hy guydt is).” Since the prices given for each sugar from a single productive region generally fall within a close range, I think it is safe to assume that they are quoting prices for the so-called machos, i.e. white and moscovado. Only twice is Brazilian panela quoted specifically, in December 1580, at 1,200 reis and April 30, 1582 at 1,050. See Table 8.5.

9 In Antwerp in the sixteenth century merchants used the expression “gegharbrileirt” to designate the best quality within a type of merchandise, worth a premium in price. See examples in: Uitterdijk, Een Kamper Handelshuis, 103. 10 One case purportedly led to a conflict between Álvaro de Azevedo and Paulo Lopes da Cunha around 1609. A ship arrived from Brazil and sprung a leak in Lisbon harbor, wetting the sugar crates. They were retrieved as quickly as possible and sold in auction in the Alfândega. IANTT, IL, Processo de Álvaro de Azevedo, No. 728. See also Koen, “Notarial Records,” 11, no. 2 (1977): 227. 11 In 1610 this appeared to be the case for sugar purchased in Porto. Where the price for moscovado from Bahia was 1,225 reis per arroba, but only 1,200 from Rio de Janeiro. GAA, NA, no. 258, 5V–6.

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Given all of the variables, analysis for sugar costs must be taken with a great deal of caution. The tables that follow are an attempt to gather the current information available about wholesale prices for Brazilian sugar, and to provide the range of quoted prices in various Brazilian and European centers in the first eighty years of the trade. These tables present—as far as I am aware—the most comprehensive summary of Brazilian wholesale sugar prices collected so far, but problems in analysis remain.12 Let us begin with a look at the price of sugar in Brazilian mills (table 8.4). Here the available data give a very limited impression. Nevertheless, it appears that prices may have increased until about 1611, after which they began a steady decline, leveling off in the 1620s in the range of 800 to 900 reis per arroba. 1623 appears to have been a low mark, as comments from contemporaries in Brazil confirm. This may have been the result of a generalized depression coinciding with the outbreak of the Thirty Year’s War in 1618. War and uncertainty in Germany certainly would have had an effect on the demand for sugar, significant quantities of which traveled to German states.13 At any rate, soon after, sugar prices rose again. When the WIC began to devastate various sectors of the Brazilian sugar economy after 1624, there was a serious scarcity in both the supply of sugar and shipping to carry it to Europe.

12 To show just one example, the two sources available for Lisbon sugar prices in the year 1618 are highly disparate (see Table 8.4). Leonor Costa records the lower price—1,100 reis per arroba—for white sugar, based on records reporting the price in the Lisbon Alfândega. At the same time the Lisbon-based merchant, Pedro Clarisse, quoted a range of 1,720 to 1,780 reis for white sugar during that year. This represents a difference of value in the range of 36–38%. As indicated above, in the wartime years of 1624–1625 this was not an unheard-of range, since prices often fluctuated wildly. But 1618 was a time of peace. Furthermore, Schwartz records that Brazilian sugar commanded 1,000 reis per arroba on Brazilian wharfs in 1618. Using the lower estimate of sugar value in Lisbon has led Costa to conclude that the premium of arbitrage for transporting sugar from Brazil to Portugal plummeted around the years 1618. Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:243–5. However, if the prices given by Pedro Clarisse in 1618 are a more accurate estimation of average prices, then the picture was not so dire for sugar traders. Furthermore, a lack of information about the prices of moscovado and panela in Brazilian mills frustrates analysis. It could very well be that the arbitrage margins on these sugars were even higher than for white sugar. 13 Schwartz, Sugar Plantations, 171–2. Although, paradoxically, much sugar began to be diverted to Hamburg after the cessation of the Twelve Year Truce.

supply, demand, prices and profitability Year

White

1550 1552 1572 1576 1578 1584 1592 1596 1597 1598 1601 1604 1607 1608 1611 1613 1614 1618 1619 1620 1621 1622 1623 1625 1626 1627 1628 1629 1630

400 400 450 630 880 800 800 865 910 950 800 800 1,100 1,083 1,287 1,147 1,000 800–1,000 700 955 800 850 580–600 675–800 600–800 730–1,060 800–896 800–810 673–780

Table 8.4

157

Moscovado

550 550

640 500–600 550 500 360 550

Wholesale sugar prices in Brazil: reis per arroba

Sources: Schwartz, Sugar Plantations, 498–9; Mauro, Portugal, o Brasil e o Atlântico, vol. 1, Apêndice, “Preço do açúcar no Brasil.”

While not apparent from the available data, Brazil, no doubt, also experienced short-term fluctuations in price. Here European demand played more of an indirect role. Brazil was insulated from prices in Amsterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg by a sailing distance of many months and—although it was prices in these entrepôts that mainly conditioned the asking price in Brazilian warehouses—fluctuations in northern European demand probably affected Brazil at slower and more protracted rhythms. The causes for short-term shifts were probably more related to organization of the trade in Brazil itself. After the

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safra, as warehouses filled on the harbors of Recife, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, prices undoubtedly dropped. Conversely, the appearance of many ships at once to collect sugar surely put upward pressure on the price. A lack of ships, owing to war or piracy would have precisely the opposite effect.14 Other structural aspects of the trade militated against short-term fluctuations and facilitated faster price convergence across the Atlantic. These included the practices before 1630 of year-round shipping and avoiding convoy sailing. Other practices used by merchants to avoid risk, such as parceling out their cargoes in a variety of ships, probably helped to even-out demand.15 Smaller ships and persistent underutilization of cargo space also helped to maintain a relative scarcity of goods in Brazil. This worked to the advantage of merchants, who resisted crown schemes to substitute larger ships for smaller ones16 Some have seen a period of lower prices arriving earlier than 1618 in Brazil, since legislation protecting mill owners from excessive debt on the part of sugar traders was enacted as early as 1612.17 However, growers apparently complained about having their assets seized by merchants even before 1612 when prices for sugar were still very high. Planter complaints may simply indicate that at this time the profit from sugar was not chiefly in production. When the crown responded in 1612 to these complaints with a moratorium on debt—which anyway was rescinded in 1614—it was probably not intended to boost one sector over another. Rather it was meant to keep production going, since it was taxed.18

Ibid., 169. Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:318. 16 Mello, Olinda restaurada, 49. 17 Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:59–60; Schwartz, Sugar Plantations, 195. 18 See Claudinei Magno Magre Mendes, “A coroa Portuguesa e a colonização do Brasil. Aspectos da atuação do estado na constituiçao da colônia,” História 16 (1997): 233–53. 14 15

supply, demand, prices and profitability Year

White

Moscovado

1577 1578 1579 1580 1582 1609 1610* 1611 1612 1613 1614 1615 1617 1618 1619 1620 1621 1622 1623 1624 1625 1626 1627 1628 1630

1,400 1,400–1,600 1,800 1,650 1,850 1,850 2,020

1,300 1,200–1,500

Table 8.5

Wholesale Brazilian sugar prices in Lisbon: reis per arroba

1,600–1,800 1,500–1,800 1,000 1,700–1,800 1,150 1,100–1,780 1,100–1,200 1,100 1,100–1,550 900–1,200 800 800–1,850 1,100–2,000 1,016–2,000 1,400–3,000 1,600 1,890

Panela

159

1,400 1,150 1,200 1,340–1,450 1,270 1,240–1,330 1,100–1,240 850 1,050

1,200 1,050 920 1,000 870–930 720–800 470 650

900–1,200 800–850 670–810 820–1,280 800–1,340 1,050–1,350 1,400–2,000

550–650 520–540 450–600 600–820 920–950 800 1,000–1,600

1,340

750

Source 1 1 1 1 1, 2 3 2, 3 3 3 3 2, 3 3 4 3, 4 4, 5 4 3, 4 3, 4 3, 4 3, 4 3, 4 3, 4 3, 4 4 3

Sources: 1. Uitterdijk, J.N., Een Kamper Handelshuis, 40, 49, 57, 72, 94, 130, 250, 262, 310, 323, 374. 2. Mauro, Portugal, o Brasil e o Atlântico, vol. 1, Apêndice, “Preço do açúcar em Lisboa.” 3. Stols, Bijlagen, 203–7. 4. Costa, 1:241. 5. IANTT, IL, Processo de Marcos de Góes, No. 3148. A Dutch source for the year 1610 gives Porto prices as 1,850 for white, and 1,200–1,225 for moscovado. GAA, NA, no. 258, 5V–6 (1610–6–16). The sugar may have arrived in Portugal the previous year.

Sugar prices in Lisbon showed different characteristics than those of Brazil (see Table 8.5). Here merchants were only a few weeks behind the latest news about prices in northwestern Europe, and this undoubtedly meant that prices fluctuated more over the course of any given year.

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Consequently, in the price data, years for which only one price appears must be taken with great caution. Where the price data comes from merchant sources and reveals greater fluctuation over the course of a single year, it undoubtedly shows real conditions with greater verisimilitude. Nevertheless, the Lisbon data show prices moving roughly in sync with those in Brazil. For white sugar, prices seemed to rise consistently, reaching a high point around 1610 after which they declined slightly until about 1618 and remained low until the mid 1620s. After this, prices rose again, presumably because of scarcity. The same trends appear for moscovado and panela sugar, although the data for panela does not provide for firm conclusions. One interesting observation is that the ratio of value between the three grades of sugar changed significantly, sometimes from year to year. Different sources may account for some of the change, but even when the prices come from the same source the difference is notable. In 1612 and 1613, the highest price for white sugar recorded by Pedro Clarisse remained 1,800 reis. However, the highest price for moscovado descended from 1,330 to 1,240 reis. As with Brazil and Lisbon, price information for northwestern Europe also remains highly fragmentary. One source is the price currents published by the middle of the sixteenth century in Antwerp as an aid to the brokers’ guilds.19 For the earliest period, however, these documents do not always survive. Price currents appeared regularly in Amsterdam by the end of the sixteenth century, and these provided the basis for the data famously collected by Posthumus on prices in Amsterdam. Herman van der Wee’s monumental work on the history of the Antwerp economy did included sugar prices, but these, unfortunately did not distinguish between grades of sugar, and therefore are of limited use for the wholesale trade.20 Other municipal sources provide general trends, but also fail to explain the wholesale prices of sugar. Donald J. Harreld has analyzed a series of documents from Antwerp from 1543 to 1545 that constituted the records of the merchant who 19 John J. McCusker and C. Gravesteijn, The beginnings of commercial and financial journalism: the commodity price currents, exchange rate currents, and money currents of early modern Europe (Amsterdam: Nederlands Economisch Historisch Archief, 1991), 51–2. 20 Prices are quoted for the St. Bavo Fair in October. It is not clear where the sugar comes from, what grade it is, nor even if it is refined, which I suspect. The high price of 60 Brabant groten (218 reis) per pound given in 1600 may very well have been for sugar from Madeira. Van der Wee’s statistics end in 1600. Herman van der Wee, The Growth of the Antwerp Market and the European Economy, 2 vols. (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1963), 1:319–21.

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had farmed the Hundredth Penny Tax. Harreld has discovered many price quotes for São Tomé sugar in this period, including 506 registers that refer to a weight of sugar and a price. Nevertheless, since this particular tax applied to Antwerp’s exports of sugar, it means that it was already refined in Antwerp’s refineries. These prices shed little light then on the price of raw sugar on Antwerp’s markets, but confirm that prices for sugar—even when refined—fluctuated significantly in the short term.21 Year 1578 1581 1607 1613 1615 1618 1619 1621 1622 1624 1626 1627

White 20 (2,032) 21–22 (2,134–2,236) 19–21 (1,931–2,134) 18 ½ (1,880) 15 1/2 (1,575) 14 ½–15 ½ (1,474–1,575) 18–20 (1,830–2,032) 19–20 (1,931–2,032) 27 (2,744)

Moscovado

Panela

Source 1

12 ½ (1,270) 15 ½–16 (1,575–1,626) 15 ½ (1,575) 14 1/2 (1,474)

2 8 (813) 11 (1,118)

3 3 4 3

12 (1,220)

11–11 ½ 7 ½–7 ¾ (1,118–1,169) (762–788) 14–16 12–14 (1,423–1,626) (1,220–1,423) 17 1/2 (1,779) 22 ½–23 ½ (2,287–2,389)

3 3 3 3 3 3

Table 8.6 Wholesale sugar prices in Antwerp, groten per pound (reis per arroba) Sources: 1. Pohl, Zuckereinfuhr, 348–73. 2. Uitterdijk, J.N., Een Kamper Handelshuis te Lissabon, 1572–1594, 348. 3. Stols, Spaanse Brabanders, Bijlagen, 203–7. 4. Koen, ed. “Amsterdam Notarial Records,” 10, no. 2 (1976), 214.

21 Harreld, “Antwerp Sugar Prices,” 611–17. I doubt that the very rich Antwerp archives have been exhausted for commodities price information, and, hopefully, further research there will yield more substantive data on sugar prices.

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The limited data for Brazilian sugar in Antwerp, shown in Table 8.6, do hint at price convergence between Antwerp, Lisbon and Brazil.22 The trend again is a rise towards 1610; a subsequent fall, especially after 1618; and recovery by the middle of the 1620s. Additionally, these prices follow those in nearby Amsterdam, as a later table will show. The dense network of commercial relationships connecting the two trading cities—including the Portuguese merchant houses—contributed to the coordinated movement of prices. As seen in the previous tables, the Antwerp data does not indicate short-term fluctuations in prices, which most certainly existed in reality. Another lacuna requires explanation. This is the lack of data for the years between 1581 and 1607. But it should come as no surprise. After the capture of Antwerp by Parma in 1585, the role of Antwerp as the preeminent sugar staple was over. Although sugar imports to Antwerp resumed in the following century, the sugar industry in the city on the Schelde was severely disrupted for several decades.23 Sugar prices in Amsterdam for the period until 1630 remain little known. The famous Prijsgeschiedenis of Posthumus—based on the aforementioned price currents of the brokers’ guild—only offers consistent series for the years beginning in 1624.24 Nevertheless, Table 8.7 also includes mentions of sugar prices from the Amsterdam notarial archives, as summarized in the Studia Rosenthaliana.25

22 A conversion of the Antwerp prices for sugar into a calculation of reis per arroba allows a comparison of the change in the value of the commodity from Lisbon to Antwerp. Stols counts 32 pounds to the arroba for Hamburg and Antwerp. Obviously there was no standardization during this period. I have based conversions in the sugar price tables for Antwerp and Hamburg at 28 pounds to the arroba for the sake of consistency since the Amsterdam calculation is based on a pond value of 0.494 kilogram and an arroba of 14.69 kilogram, i.e., 1 arroba = 28 pounds. Stols’ table of sugar prices quoted by Clarisse indicates that the price is given in stuivers per pound, which I have listed as groten per pound without changing the values. The quotes provided by Stols seemed extremely high to me compared to other quotes coming from merchants, and I am convinced that he simply made a mistake listing these quotes as stuivers instead of groten. See: Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, Bijlagen, 203–7. For a recent summary of weights and measures pertaining to Dutch shipping, see: Johannes Postma and Victor Enthoven, eds., Riches from Atlantic Commerce: Dutch Transatlantic Trade and Shipping, 1585–1817, (The Hague: Brill, 2003), 461–5. 23 In 1590, only 30 crates of sugar were imported into Antwerp. Pohl, “Die Zuckereinfuhr nach Antwerpen,” 354. 24 N.W. Posthumus, Nederlandsche prijsgeschiedenis, 2 vols. (The Hague: Brill, 1943), 1:119, 122. 25 I have found only a handful of sugar price quotes out of the roughly 4,000 records that have been summarized so far in this series, including those until the year 1628.

supply, demand, prices and profitability Year

White

1609

21 ½ (2,185)

16 ½ (1,677)

1617

21 (2,134)

13 ¾ (wet) (1,397) 14 ½ (1,474) 13 (1,321)

1618

20 (2,032) 19 ½ (1,982) 17 ½ (1,779) 19 (1,931) 20 ½ (2,084) 23 (2,338)

13 ½–15 (1,372–1,525) 16 (1,626) 13 (1,321) 15 (1,524) 16.8 (1,708) 17.6 (1,789)

1611 1615

1619 1624 1625 1626 1628 Table 8.7

Moscovado

Panela

8 (813) 9–10 (915–1,016)

163 Source

Posthumus and Koen 5, no. 1 (1971) 116–7; Koen 5, no. 2 (1971) 227 Koen 10, no. 1 (1976) 99–100 Koen 11, no. 1 (1977) 90–91; 11, no. 2 (1977) 227 Koen, 13, no. 2 (1979) 239. Posthumus “ “ “ “

Wholesale sugar prices in Amsterdam, groten per pound (reis per arroba)

Sources: Koen, E.M., ed., Notarial Records (see issue and page numbers above); and Posthumus, N.W., Nederlandsche Prijsgeschiedenis, 1:119, 122. Posthumus offers the figures as a percentage of a guilder. I have converted them to groten (groot = .025 guilder) and rounded them off to the nearest half groot.

These figures, although limited, suggest a similar fall in value of sugar in the period from 1619 to 1624, although not to the degree seen in Brazil or Lisbon. Nor is the increase in prices so marked towards the end of the 1620s. The shifts in prices may have been milder in Amsterdam than in the south. Given the small amount of available data, this assertion may be difficult to verify or to interpret. But if Amsterdam sugar prices did not fall as much as those in Lisbon and Antwerp, there is at least one possible explanation. After 1621 the supply of Brazilian sugar to Amsterdam must have diminished, owing to the Spanish embargoes. A diminished supply probably kept some upwards pressure on prices, in spite of depression in Europe in general. As the decade progressed

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and the Almirantazgo tightened the noose around illegal trade, this pressure on prices surely remained, in spite of the sugar prizes brought to Amsterdam by the WIC war fleets. Price convergence was affected by the political actions of the states along the commodity chain.

Year

White

Moscovado

1623

13–16 (1,321–1,626) 14–17 (1,423–1,728) 17–23 (1,728–2,338) 24–27 (2,439–2,744)

11 (1,118) 11 ½ (1,169) 14–18 (1,423–1,830) 22 ½–24 (2,287–2,439)

1624 1626 1627 Table 8.8

Panela 8 (813) 8½ (864) 10 ½–13 (1,067–1,321) 13 ½–21 (1,372–2,134)

Wholesale sugar prices in Hamburg: groten per pound (reis per arroba)

Source: Stols, Spaanse Brabanders, Bijlagen, 203–7.

Data for sugar prices in Hamburg are limited to the 1620s, shown here in Table 8.8. The series is probably too small to be of much value, but it still shows the general rise in prices seen in all other markets in Europe towards the end of this decade. Hamburg probably benefited from increased imports during this period as a result of the disruption to the Amsterdam sugar staple with the lapse of the Twelve Year Truce. A comparison of price data for Europe and Brazil, assembled in Figure 8.1, confirms two main points, already suggested above. One is that prices for sugar in Europe were relatively closely coordinated in their movements. This is consistent with a ‘free’ market for sugar and an inter-imperial organization in the wholesale sector. Secondly, sugar prices remained high in Europe compared to Brazil. This indicates that the premium of arbitrage in moving Brazilian sugar to Europe was usually substantial. As discussed above, profit from arbitrage owed to a variety of factors whose relative importance may have changed from period to period. The larger trend driving profit until was the most likely the growth of demand. As the data above suggest, increased production in Brazil did not generally lead to lower prices in Brazil or Europe.

3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0

165 Bahia Lisbon Amsterdam Antwerp Hamburg

16 1607 0 16 8 1609 1 16 0 11 16 1 16 2 1 16 3 1 16 4 1615 1 16 6 1617 1 16 8 19 16 2 16 0 21 16 2 16 2 23 16 2 16 4 1625 2 16 6 2 16 7 28

Reis per Arroba

supply, demand, prices and profitability

Year

Figure 8.1

Sugar prices in Brazil and Europe

Source: Tables 8.4–8.8. I have omitted the Lisbon data quoted above for the years 1614 or 1617 from this figure, since I am strongly convinced that they are too low to be representative.

The evidence presented here, while still incomplete, also suggests some degree of price convergence in the Atlantic economy by the beginning of the seventeenth century. In the case of European markets, this is very likely the case. Shipping between the Iberian Peninsula and northern European markets was vigorous and constant, as we have seen, and the movement of commodities between markets was highly resistant to political interference such as embargoes. If prices did indeed move closely together between Lisbon, Amsterdam and Antwerp, this should come as no surprise. Atlantic transportation may have been more hazardous and irregular, but even sugar moved by contraband traders, pirates and privateers also made its way to the main European markets, so even ‘illegal’ trade may have contributed to price convergence. However, it may be wrong to speak of the Law of One Price in a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century context, and short-term fluctuations in price remained a persistent feature of the early modern Atlantic trading economy. The data presented above indicates some degree of integration in the South Atlantic economy as a whole, although more evidence is still needed. Merchants profited by buying cheap and selling dear, but against these potential gains in arbitrage had to be counted the costs of transportation, including insurance costs. Uncovering these variables creates thorny problems for modern historians, just as managing them did for sixteenth- and seventeenth-century merchants. Freight charges offer a rough indication of the transportation costs of merchants, but—as with price data—must be evaluated with extreme caution. One problem with freight charges was their propensity for short-term fluctuation. In

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1618, three Amsterdam brokers, who were mainly involved in freight contracts, testified to a notary that there was a significant short-term variation in freight prices, depending on the place and time.26 Nevertheless, in spite of the likelihood of short-term fluctuations, freight contracts offer some indication of the long-term trends in costs associated with transporting Brazilian sugar. The data in Appendix C for the Brazil-Portugal route, gathered by Costa, are extensive enough to show these trends. The nature of these contracts makes them particularly valuable for analysis. The trade itself had a relatively uncomplicated structure: on the return route from Brazil, sugar was paramount. Although brazilwood and a few other items also returned from Brazil in some quantity, their mention in freight contracts is not nearly so pronounced as that of sugar, and freight charges were almost always based on a price per ton of sugar shipped.27 This allows for a consistency in the data that is not matched for freight contracts that mention sugar shipped between European destinations. Further consistency is possible because of the practice among shippers in Brazilian routes to measure a ton in 54 arrobas of sugar. Although the number of arrobas per crate tended to increase after 1618, the contemporary practice of understanding a ton in terms of a maximum weight of sugar was still generalized. As crate sizes increased, shippers simply packed a smaller number of heavier crates per ton of space. This practice was widespread, as some Low Countries Brazil traders testified to an Amsterdam notary in 1618. Merchants who paid freight charges for sugar, they claimed, understood that they were paying a charge per 54 arrobas of sugar.28 Also, no matter what the merchandise carried to Brazil, the staffing of a ship was oriented by the exigencies of loading sugar in the colony, as well as sailing and defending the vessel. The freight calculation, then, took in the costs of shipping mainly sugar.29 Perception of risk probably formed the chief variable affecting short-term changes in costs of shipping. When squadrons of enemy fleets infested the Atlantic, the risks to shipping were reflected in freight charges. The data collected in Figure 8.2 show this clearly. The first

Koen, “Notarial Records,” 13, no. 2 (1979): 239. Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:307–9. 28 GAA, NA, no. 645, 43V–44. Costa confirms this from multiple sources. Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:310. 29 Costa’s scholarship on the financial structure of shipping arrangements is also magisterial. See especially Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:369–81. 26 27

167

16000 14000 12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0

15 80 15 83 15 86 15 89 15 92 15 95 15 98 16 01 16 04 16 07 16 10 16 13 16 16 16 16 16 19 16 25 16 28

Reis per Ton (54 arrobas)

supply, demand, prices and profitability

Year

Figure 8.2

Freight charges, Brazil to Portugal

Source: Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:371.

data available for freight charges on the Brazil routes correspond with the beginning of attacks on the Portuguese merchant marine by Elizabethan warships. Freight charges rose precipitously until the first years of the seventeenth century. Peace with England in 1603 may have contributed to a decline, but Dutch warships still seized some Brazilmen, and the Portuguese sugar fleet had suffered from losses that could not be quickly recouped. Furthermore, after 1605, no foreign shipping was available to supplement the Portuguese merchant marine. Freight charges declined during the Truce, but rose after 1625 with Dutch attacks under the WIC. By the second decade of the sixteenth century, shipping charges had abated. The Twelve Year Truce remains the most obvious cause, decreasing the cost of shipping. As sailing become more regular and less risky, ship-owners could amortize the cost of their capital goods over multiple journeys. This undoubtedly sent down the cost of freight charges. A declining cost of ships in Portugal may have also contributed. Since the market for ships during the Truce had clearly become internationalized, supplies from the Netherlands likely supplemented the Portuguese merchant marine, as argued in Chapter 5. Consequently, during this period, freight charges remained low and stable, staying mainly between 8,800–9,500. This was a substantial improvement from the year 1598, when charges were as high as 11,000 reis per ton. Higher freight rates, alas, returned with a vengeance following the expiration of the Truce. The effect was not immediate, since the WIC spent several years acquiring the requisite level of capitalization. The turning point came in 1624, with the invasion of Bahia, and the following years, when WIC squadrons actively sought prizes in Brazilian

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waters. Unfortunately for Portuguese shippers, freight charges during these years may have induced nostalgia for the days of Elizabethan privateering. Costa based her values for the years 1626–1628 on averages from 55 observations in the Lisbon and Porto notarial archives.30 The relatively large number of notarial documents from this period shows that risk not only prompted higher freight charges, but also sent shippers and ship owners to the notary in droves to formalize their shipping arrangements as added protection. Once sugar reached Portugal, its shipping arrangements to other European destinations become structurally far more complicated. Consequently, it is difficult to interpret freight charges for sugar, or even to talk of freight charges for sugar per se in European shipping. As noted above, ships returning to Portugal from Brazil mainly had their holds packed with sugar. But in ships leaving Portugal for other destinations, cargoes were very likely mixed. Travel times between European ports were also shorter, and the range of possible destinations within certain main routes was also large. Furthermore, the ships that moved sugar out of Portugal bore foreign flags. Many of the freight contracts for trips to Portugal celebrated in Amsterdam do not stipulate return cargoes, leaving the choice to the captain or correspondents on the spot.31 Also, in inter-European trade routes, the supply of shipping was always far greater than the shipping demand generated by sugar alone. Even during periods when the ultra-cheap Dutch merchant marine was banned from Portuguese harbors, ships from the Hansa cities were always ready to collect freight in their stead. Aside from the scarcity of information about freight charges for Brazilian sugar on European routes, the form of the existing information stymies attempts to provide a systematic analysis. In some cases freight was charged per last—or ton. In others it was charged per crate of sugar, without a clear definition of the weight of the crates. Sometimes freight was charged on a variety of goods shipped together, including sugar, oil and other products. This bewildering multiplicity of arrangements can be noted in Appendix C, Table C2. While shipping practices were probably too disparate to admit systematic analysis, some larger points emerge. In the years 1609–1611, The data for these years incorporate a high number of observations, which lends them a very strong credibility as well. Ibid., 1:371. 31 Although many hundreds in the period to 1630 do stipulate return cargoes: mainly of salt. 30

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freight charged per last of sugar moved from Portugal to the Dutch Republic hovered between 27 and 39 guilders (1,964–2,836 reis per ton). By 1627 the cost of shipping had nearly tripled, with freight charged for the same route from 65 to 84 guilders (4,727–6,109 reis per ton). Once again, risk explains the difference. These latter journeys were contracted for contraband trade, sailing around Scotland and England to avoid the Dunkirk privateers who were notoriously active in these years. Their captains intended to land—probably with foreign passports—in the Algarve, which was under less scrutiny by crown authorities. This type of shipping, still being planned some years after the creation of the WIC, could only be carried out at considerable risk. A further point revealed in Table C2 (Appendix C) is the relative cheapness of inter-European transportation of sugar. The few examples from the years 1610–11 offer a comparison. Here freight is charged per last, which is calculated as eight or ten crates per last. A last was more-or-less double a Portuguese ton, and, as Costa has shown, the practice during this period in Portugal was to charge freight per 54-arroba ton. This amount of cargo space held generally four crates of sugar in the period until 1621. So the Dutch show some approximation of Portuguese freighting practices. If a ship had freighted eight crates (around 13.5 arrobas per crate) per ton, then the total weight per ton would be 108 arrobas. Consequently the freight charge in 1611 from Rotterdam to Viana and back to Amsterdam with a cargo of sugar would have been 14 guilders per 54 arrobas (i.e. one Portuguese ton of sugar cargo). This translates into 2,032 reis per ton, based on average peacetime values, shown in Table C2 (The average freight charge for the Brazilian leg of the journey in that year was 9,000 reis per ton.). If the Dutch were able to pack 10 crates into a last, as was stipulated in one contract in 1610, the savings would have been even greater. This should come as no surprise. The round trip from the Low Countries to Portugal was significantly shorter than that between Brazil and Portugal. It is true that Dutch ships were larger and therefore required a larger crew, but the Dutch were still renowned for the economy of their shipping. A merchant marine that had developed to move vast quantities of grain and salt back and forth between the Iberian Peninsula and northwestern Europe could easily absorb the shipping requirements of a relatively small amount of sugar moving north from Portugal. What, then, did freighters earn on shipping sugar? Without systematic evidence from merchant’s account books, this question remains impossible to answer. However, it seems certain that price margins on

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freighting sugar were highly variable both in times of war and peace.32 Freight charges between these two regions were generally stable during the years of the Truce (1610–1621), averaging 9,127 reis per 54-arroba ton (see Appendix C). So if this cost is weighed against the higher quotes for sugar in this period, it appears that profitability was a distinct possibility throughout the Truce, as seen in Table 8.9. This remains only an exercise, since none of the figures below come from actual voyages undertaken. Also, they do not reflect the expense of taxes in Lisbon, or other risk-management costs. However, assuming that these taxes were about 30%, the potential price margins for sugar after taxes remained high, ranging from 12–43%.33 If merchants used the ports of Viana or Porto, the earnings may have been greater.

Year

Price, Brazil

Price, Lisbon

Adjusted price difference (–freight charge 9,127 per ton)

Margins

1613 1618 1619 1621

61,938 54,000 37,800 43,200

97,200 96,120 64,800 83,700

26,135 32,993 17,873 31,373

42% 61% 47% 73%

Table 8.9

Price margins less freight per 54-arroba ton of white sugar shipped from Brazil to Lisbon in reis

Source: See Tables 8.4, 8.5 above.

A similar calculation (Table 8.10) shows the premium of arbitrage— also high— from Lisbon to Amsterdam. This table is also based on the higher price quotes for sugar in Lisbon during the Twelve Year Truce. If, in fact, sugar could be obtained more cheaply in Lisbon than these

32 Costa has estimated that the premium of arbitrage for sugar shipped from Brazil to Portugal remained high until around 1610, after which it dropped for nearly a decade and a half. She only sees a return to profitability in the years following the invasion of Bahia, with the return of high prices in Lisbon. This has led Costa to assume that profitability in shipping sugar during this period must have accrued in the re-distribution routes. Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:239–48. Using higher figures for prices in sugar during this period contradict this assessment. 33 I am assuming that taxes in Lisbon were paid on current wholesale values of sugar in Lisbon. It is possible that sugar was often undervalued for this purpose as some of the Alfândega data seems to suggest (see previous arguments in this chapter). In that case, profits for traders were even higher.

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figures suggest, then the premium would have been even greater.34 But even with these relatively high prices in Lisbon, the margin obtained by moving sugar north was considerable. Although the gap between prices in the two entrepôts was smaller than that between Brazil and Lisbon, shipping was much cheaper. Presumably there was greater convergence between these two European markets. Detailed information about freight charges for freighting sugar from Portugal to the Dutch Republic during the Truce is lacking, as we have seen, but this table assumes average freight rates for the period at 2,032 reis per ton, as described above. Likewise, the value of the convooien en licenten charged in Amsterdam on sugar are not known for this period, but shippers could still profit even if these taxes were 5%, which is very plausible. Year (type of sugar)

PriceLisbon

PriceAmsterdam

1609 (white) 1615 (moscovado) 1618 (white)

99,900 56,700 96,120

117,990 79,596 109,728

Table 8.10

Adjusted price difference Margins (–2,032 reis freight charge) 16,058 20,864 11,576

16% 37% 12%

Price margins less freight per 54-arroba ton of sugar shipped from Lisbon to Amsterdam in reis

Source: see Tables 8.5 and 8.7 above.

These theoretical calculations of the premium of arbitrage suggest that for successful voyages, sugar profits could be quite substantial. Of course, shipping at sea was risky, and so all investments had the quality of a roll of the dice. In particular on the Brazilian routes of the trade, risk was high, as piracy or privateering was a significant risk in every decade until 1630. Very good profit appears also to have been possible on the leg from Lisbon to northwestern European towns. It seems doubtful that, even during the Truce, investors would have bothered with this trade without a strong expectation of significant remuneration for voyages successfully completed.

34 As an exercise, we may look at Costa’s figure for sugar in Lisbon in 1618 at 1,100 reis per arroba. At this price, a ton shipped to Amsterdam would have netted 48,296 reis after freight charges. This represents a profit of 48,296 reis, or 81%. Given the quantity and utter regularity of shipping between Portugal and the Dutch Republic, i.e. their price integration, there is no way that this price imbalance could have been sustained over the long term.

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The final calculation of profit was possible only after subtracting insurance costs. And the margins suggested above indicate that merchants could buy expensive policies and still make a profit. Shipping and insurance practices helped to broaden the base of merchants supporting the risk of trans-Atlantic journeys, but they added their own burdens by increasing costs substantially. However, the evidence of insurance policies and bottomry contracts that charged premiums that ranged from 30% and above—even during times of peace—are likely another indicator of the profitability of the trade. Some merchants shunned insurance, hoping for a larger payoff, while others sought security along with a smaller return. Given its profitability, governments had good reason to support this trade. The Habsburg crown in the seventeenth century became ever more dependent on income from external trade, at least in Portugal. It had little flexibility in increasing Portuguese sisas, or sales taxes, which were collected by the provinces. Consequently Alfândega receipts became crucial and—at least in the period up to about 1605—showed a tendency to increase, as seen in Table 8.11. The crown exploited its flexibility in taxing external commerce, as witnessed by the consulado, the 3% tax imposed on imports by Philip II in 1593.35 In 1619, the revenue of the Portuguese empire was 972,186 cruzados. Customs receipts made up 17% of this income. It seems likely that a majority of this revenue was due to imports of Brazilian sugar. 1588 Alfândega Almoxarifados** Portugal-Total Empire Total

1593

1605

1607

125,150* 154,654 200,000 186,500 226,087 225,381 210,000 200,728 496,126 492,671 n/a 679,228 967,119 1,018,391 n/a 1,672,270

Table 8.11

1619 170,000 194,082 736,826 972,186

1625

1627

187,230 93,646 201,112 201,112 708,730 546,668 894,824+ 733,882±

Royal revenues: Habsburg Portugal, cruzados

Source: Hespanha, As vésperas do leviathan: instituições e poder político Portugal-Séc. XVII, 149–155. * 105,000 from Lisbon alone. ** Royal taxes on bread, wine, oil, etc. + No receipts from Mina. ± Does not include revenues from “próprios” and “mestrados.”

35

Hespanha, As vésperas do leviathan, 142.

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If revenue from the Brazilian sugar trade assumed increasing importance in the first two decades of the sixteenth century, the loss of revenue after 1621 was painful. The threat to Portuguese shipping from the WIC damaged the royal fisc. Total revenues from the empire are not known for 1627, but in that year customs income had fallen nearly by half to 93,646 cruzados. Furthermore, the Spanish war against the ‘rebellious provinces’ hurt Portugal disproportionately. While Portugal’s finances were badly injured by the loss to shipping prompted by embargoes and Dutch privateering, Castile could better bear the loss of revenue, since it drew upon a larger population and agricultural hinterland. In 1607, income from Brazil provided perhaps only 4.5% of the total revenue of the Habsburg Crown, valued at 5.6 tons of silver.36 Sugar’s importance to the overall economy of northwestern Europe may be more difficult to place. However, it seems that—in the period before 1630—its impact in any single place was relatively small. This is almost certainly the case with Hamburg and Antwerp. Hamburg probably was only taking a fraction of Brazilian production before 1621. In 1612, the town counted its sugar imports from all merchants, finding 2,203 crates, i.e. 29,740 arrobas (13.5 arrobas per crate). This was about 4% of likely production in Brazil that year, but the Portuguese merchant community in Hamburg was just getting established.37 Antwerp imported more. In the same year, the Feitoria de Flandres in Antwerp counted 2,441 crates of sugar imports. This would have amounted to about 32,953 arrobas, or about 5% of Brazilian production. However, this counts only the sugar that was imported by Portuguese merchants, taxed by an avaria. The following year the Portuguese merchants alone imported 5,157 crates, or 10% of Brazilian output. In subsequent years Hamburg and Antwerp imports probably accounted between them for 20 to 25% of Brazilian production. Although data is lacking, this percentage probably grew after 1621.

36 F.N. de Carvalho, H. Johnson, and M.B.N. da Silva, Nova História da Expansão Portuguesa: O Império Luso-Brasileiro, 1500–1620 (Lisbon: Editorial Estampa, 1992), 296; John Lynch, The Hispanic World in Crisis and Change, 1598–1700 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), 478. 37 The rest would have gone to Italy, England and other German towns. Of course, some sugar stayed in Portugal, although it is difficult to say how much. The market there would have been relatively small, although sugar consumption was increasing in urban areas. Kellenbenz, Sephardim an der unteren Elbe, 478; Pohl, “Die Zuckereinfuhr nach Antwerpen,” 33; Stols, “The Expansion of the Sugar Market in Western Europe,” 237–88.

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How significant was sugar to the economy of the Dutch Republic, its largest importer? At the peak period of trade, during the Twelve Year Truce, probably at least half of all Portuguese sugar exports went to Amsterdam. For the year 1612, this would have equaled 336,000 arrobas, or 9,408,000 Dutch ponden. At 20 groten per pound (see Table 8.7), this means that Brazilian sugar shipped from Portugal to Amsterdam had a gross value of 4,704,000 guilders (684,218,181 reis).38 If accurate, that was not a negligible amount. At a margin of 14%, merchants would have yielded 658,560 guilders (95,790,545 reis) upon resale in the Dutch Republic. This is close to the average annual profits of the VOC during the 1620s, calculated at 750,000 guilders per year.39 The importance of sugar at this stage in European history must be taken in context. Portugal was comparatively underdeveloped in domestic industry and agriculture, and so the sugar trade—like all of its overseas trade—loomed large as a source of wealth in the kingdom. In the Dutch Republic this trade existed alongside thriving agriculture, a diversified maritime sector, and a host of domestic industries. Profits from the sugar trade only represented a small fraction of the wealth created by the Dutch economy. For example, in the year 1630, woolen cloth production from Leiden alone was probably worth 4 million guilders. The gross value of the Dutch herring catch in the same year may have been about 3 million guilders.40 But, unlike the herring and woolen cloth industries, the Brazilian sugar trade was international, and the profit made by resale in the Netherlands was only one aspect of the total profit made in the trade. Given its overall value, it is not surprising that it prompted merchants

38 Strong confirmation for my estimate comes from the statement of Portuguese merchants in Amsterdam in 1621 that sugar paid between 35,000 and 40,000 annually on the municipal scales. Since it was taxed here at 1% or less, that indicates an annual import worth 4,000,000 guilders or more. See: “Deductie” in IJzerman, “Deductie,” 103. Of course, the “Deductie” must be used with caution. Also note that in 1618 Portuguese merchants in Amsterdam claimed that they had lost 539,071 guilders (78,410,327 reis) to confiscations by the Holy Office of goods in possession of their correspondents in Portugal. A majority of these were sugar: “Declaratie van de schaden” ARA, SG (Liassen admiraliteiten) 12561.31. 39 Actual revenues for the VOC in these years averaged 4,750,000 guilders (690,909,091 reis). But expenses (4,000,000) were also high. Note that the value of the silver from the Spanish silver fleet captured by Piet Heyn in 1628 was 11.5 million guilders, equivalent to more than twice the average annual revenue of the VOC around that time. Vries and Woude, The First Modern Economy, 390–9. 40 Ibid., 267, 286.

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from the Dutch Republic—and elsewhere—to move to Portugal, just as Portuguese merchants went to northwestern Europe in order to trade sugar. Furthermore sugar profits did not end with the wholesale trade, given Amsterdam’s position as a leading refining center. As the Amsterdam suikerbackers added value to sugar and sold it on domestic and international markets, more wealth was created. Whatever the real value to the Dutch economy, the perception of profits to be made from sugar was high. This explains motivation behind the creation of the WIC. Although initially wary, investors in the Dutch Republic eventually contributed 7,108,161 guilders (1,033,914,327 reis) to capitalize a company that was largely conceived to import Brazilian sugar. The period from 1550 to 1630 was a period of increase in both the supply of and demand for Brazilian sugar. Sugar’s modest place in the overall economy of northwestern Europe shows that before 1630 European demand was still limited to elite or middle-class households. Sugar had not yet become an item of mass consumption in this region, as it would in the following century. Still, it was a period of expansion in production and trade. In the eighty-year period discussed here Brazilian production grew significantly. Supply actually tripled between 1583 and 1629. And as the data presented in this chapter suggest, the demand for Brazilian sugar also grew from 1550 to 1630, though not always steadily. From 1618 to 1624 prices were low in Brazil, Portugal and northwestern Europe, owing to a general European economic malaise that depressed demand. But supply seemed not to overtake demand. The proof of this is the high prices that sugar generally commanded in European markets. Prices could vary over the short term, but sugar generally remained quite profitable in the period until 1630. Profits came in the premium of arbitrage, both between Brazil and Portugal and Portugal and other European markets. Trading across the Atlantic always presented risk, which merchants tried to mitigate through insurance policies and other risk-reducing practices. But the price differential between different markets was usually great enough that merchants could absorb the costs that these practices imposed and still make a very decent profit. Sometimes transaction costs—embodied in freight contracts and insurance premiums—rose dramatically higher, but usually then the stakes were also higher. When risks were particularly high at sea, less sugar reached European markets. Demand and prices increased. Merchants with a high appetite for risk could make very good profits if they were lucky. But even when the trade operated on a more even keel—such as during the Twelve Year Truce—profits

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were still relatively high. This profitability is what drove the Brazilian sugar trade, and European governments recognized this when they taxed it or otherwise tried to regulate it. It is no wonder that the lure of profits from sugar prompted significant movements of merchants from one country to another.

CONCLUSION When Brazil began to produce sugar for European markets after 1550, sugar was already a proven moneymaker for merchants who had been shipping it for decades from São Tomé and Madeira. In the subsequent eight decades, Brazilian sugar would come to dominate the market, and although production in Brazil rose steadily during this time, markets grew as well, evidenced by the high profitability of sugar throughout these years in wholesale markets. The demand for Brazilian sugar was satisfied during a politically turbulent period and it overcame a variety of obstacles. Sugar production was an Iberian initiative, but the wholesale markets for sugar were in northwestern Europe. As it happened, in the second half of the sixteenth century dynastic politics set the unified Iberian crown in a military and political struggle against much of northwestern Europe, and especially the Low Countries, its economic heart. Consequently, one important context for the trade was the Eighty Year War between Habsburg Spain and the Dutch Republic. During a pause in this struggle—the Twelve Year Truce—the Brazilian sugar trade flourished like never before. Nevertheless, neither European political struggles nor mercantilisttype state policies primarily shaped the course of the Brazilian sugar trade in the period to 1630. This is partly because the trade was relatively free, and not generally subject to state-based control or monopolies. But even when certain states tried to prevent it, Brazilian sugar tended to flow through Portugal to its main markets in northwestern Europe. In spite of occasional embargoes and the disruption of traditional markets in the Low Countries as a result of the Eighty Year War, the sugar trade showed remarkable resilience. This was partly the result of the dynamism of the highly multilocal merchant networks that facilitated it. Portuguese trade with northwestern Europe spawned reciprocal migrations of merchants. Merchant houses formed inter-imperial networks of correspondents and relatives with a vast geographic reach, allowing for flexibility and responsiveness when dealing with sugar markets. Merchant mobility and inter-imperial organization meant that the sugar trade could persist in spite of political crises. In

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spite of restriction in the transportation sector, the investment structure of the trade was fully internationalized. This internationalization was at least partly possible because of continued innovations in the system of commercial capitalism. Transaction costs in the sugar trade fell because of the development in the sixteenth century of ‘modern’ forms of financial transaction and risk management, including a dramatic increase in the availability of credit and the negotiability of paper currency in European markets. These new forms of financial transactions were used in Brazil as well and allowed widespread access to investment in the sugar trade. At the same time, techniques of risk management—such as insurance policies and bottomry contracts—evolved during this time and helped to provide continuity to a trade that was often beset by a high level of maritime risk. The chartering of the WIC in 1621 marked a full-bore assault on this inter-imperial system, and may also indicate an epoch in which some states pursued consciously mercantilist trade policies with greater vigor. This assault finally had a major effect on the sugar trade after 1630, when the WIC occupied Pernambuco. The portion of Brazilian sugar production controlled by the WIC was now to be traded under monopoly auspices. While it moves beyond the scope of this study, it may be worthwhile to assess the success of mercantilist policy in the Brazilian sugar trade, as applied following 1630. In the case of Dutch Brazil, the WIC did not manage to ship Brazilian sugar under an exclusive system following its takeover of Pernambuco. The majority of sugar in Dutch Brazil was still shipped by private traders, although the WIC taxed this trade as a rent-seeking institution. Later in the century Portugal sought to extend mercantilist practice to Brazil with its own monopoly ‘Brazil Company’ and was similarly bedeviled. Private, competitive shipping and an international investment structure—key elements of the Brazilian sugar trade in its first eighty years—were not easily overthrown. Part of the freedom of the Brazilian sugar trade derived from its geographical openness. In this aspect, the present study has important implications for early Atlantic studies in general. In spite of their best efforts, early modern European states could not completely control their Atlantic maritime traffic. Sugar routes—as well as Atlantic routes in general—were vulnerable to contraband trade, piracy and privateering during times of war. These activities undoubtedly imposed costs on the sugar trade, but they demonstrate the propensity of merchants to selectively follow imperial dictates when they contradicted market

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logic. Given the cosmopolitan nature of their networks, they had the means to do so. At the same time, at least during the Twelve Year Truce, there is no evidence to show that contraband trading was widespread. Although Brazil’s vast coastline invited illegal access, most sugar was channeled through specific ports where controls were in place. More importantly, the system of controls and taxation was not at great odds with the structure of the market. Portugal remained the logical returning point from Brazil, given its position in the center of trade networks. And taxation in the metropolis was not so high that it prevented merchants from making good profits. These high profits were the driving force in the sugar trade until 1630. When voyages were successful, price margins less freight in the sugar trade were very high. The trade not only enriched merchants, but it also contributed to the income of states; in Portugal, sugar receipts formed the largest part of customs income. The trade in Brazilian sugar—the first major Atlantic trade—was an inter-imperial phenomenon. This showed in the merchants who drove it, the investment structure that facilitated it, and the merchant marine that carried it. The early modern European states that benefited from the sugar trade—especially Portugal—taxed it, but generally left it free. Therefore it is wrong to identify the first age of Atlantic commerce as ‘mercantilist,’ or to identify the Brazilian sugar trade as a particularly Portuguese or Sephardic enterprise. The international nature of the trade, and the merchant networks that facilitated it, allowed it to prosper during a turbulent political period. The greatest demand for sugar was in the Low Countries, and the political rebellions that broke out there in the 1550s could not help but affect the rhythms of the trade. But they did not alter its basic geographic orientation: most of the supply continued to move from Brazil to Portugal to northwestern Europe. During a pause in the Eighty Year War, free trade blossomed between Portugal and the Dutch Republic. Hopefully this study will continue to lead to a wider interpretation of the early Atlantic world. In particular, it strongly suggests that mercantilism in the creation of the Atlantic world was generally more normative than descriptive. This fact has all too often been obscured through analytical categories and national narratives that are ill supported by evidence. Not only that, but this work suggests a level of integration in the early Atlantic world that is usually posited only for

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the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Most would agree that the economy of the present day is marked by the mobility of capital and the internationalization of finance. The story of the Brazilian sugar trade challenges us to admit that the antecedents of modern globalization are distant.

APPENDIX A

THE TRANSATLANTIC SYSTEM: PORTS AND ROUTES IN BRAZIL, PORTUGAL AND THE ATLANTIC ISLANDS One of the most significant decisions for a merchant was his choice of ports for trade. Aside from the obvious need to have a partner in that port, the decision was influenced by the availability of both commodities for trade and a port infrastructure that allowed him to move this commodity expeditiously. Ports in Brazil served the largest sugar producing areas, and consequently it is not surprising that Pernambuco and Bahia attracted the most traffic. The evidence from notarized contracts celebrated in Lisbon and Porto confirms this abundantly. The numbers of contracts fluctuate significantly from year to year and they cannot show absolute traffic. But taken in ten-year increments they indicate a remarkable orientation towards these two major ports, with Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo following at a significant lag. Year

Bahia

Pernambuco

Espírito Santo

Rio de Janeiro

Total Brazil

Total Contracts

1580–89 1590–99 1600–09 1610–19 1620–29 Totals

8 11 34 24 34 111

8 26 43 38 64 179

1 5 2 0 0 8

0 3 5 6 12 26

19 44 82 74 114 333

37 71 144 165 191 608

Table A.1

Lisbon and Porto notarial contracts mentioning Brazilian ports of call, 1580–1630

Source: Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 2:191–216. Note: these are not all freight contracts, but rather all contracts in which a voyage was implicit. Some contracts mentioned either only Brazil as a destination, or multiple ports of call in Brazil.

The relative importance of ports in the metropolis is also apparent from a variety of sources. As Costa has argued, it seems certain that in the period described in this work Lisbon did not lose its preeminence. From 1602 to 1607 Lisbon contributed possibly some 84% of

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the kingdom’s customs income.1 Some twenty years later when the crown wished to levy an exceptional tax on merchants for the rescue of Pernambuco it still assumed that nearly 60% of the revenue would come from Lisbon alone.2 Freight contracts celebrated in Amsterdam for the Baltic-Portuguese trade in the second decade of the seventeenth century also point to the preeminence of Lisbon. Generally, since this trade was heavily oriented towards salt, Setubal received pride of place as the most visited harbor. But among the other ports, stops in Lisbon were anticipated most frequently. In 1619, Lisbon surpassed Setubal as the port-of-call most contracted. Nevertheless, in many cases contracts left the exact port-ofcall open, mentioning several stops in Portugal as possibilities. Nevertheless, even if Lisbon remained the most important port, the Brazilian sugar trade gave a new life to merchant activity in Porto and Viana. For Viana, involvement in the Brazilian sugar trade began early, and already in 1566 several Vianese ships were recorded as having transported Brazilian sugar. That number may have risen to as many as several dozen per annum in subsequent decades. In the year 1617, Viana may have accounted for about one fifth of sugar imports into Portugal.3 During this period the relatively low level of its customs Year

Total Visits

1614 1615 1616 1617 1618 1619 Table A.2

58 54 67 89 85 80

Places Named in Contracts Lisbon

Setubal

Porto

Viana

12 13 5 21 56 54

42 44 65 87 62 38

13 4 1 7 13 20

10 0 2 1 2 17

Amsterdam freight contracts, including Baltic-Portuguese trade, 1614–1619

Source: P.H. Winkelman, ed. Bronnen voor de Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Oostzeehandel, vols. 5–6.

Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:102–3. Ibid., 1:101. 3 Moreira, Os Mercadores de Viana, 24–6. The Vianese had a particularly strong association with Pernambuco, according to Fernão Cardim, a Jesuit observer in 1584. 1 2

appendix a

183

taxation must have helped to boost its fortunes. However, the cost advantages of Viana had to be weighed against the difficulties of her harbor, which was too silted to admit large vessels.4 While Viana probably remained in most years only the third largest importer of Brazilian sugar, the importance of this product to the economic life of the port is hard to over-estimate. In 1598, sugar accounted for 85% of all of the sisa receipts in the town. This number rose to 87% in 1631.5 Of 120 freight contracts examined by Moreira, 76% of them—91 in total—refer to planned trips to Brazil.6 Mauro has also emphasized that the period from 1550 to 1620 marked the reemergence of the northern ports. But, in his view, this happened at the expense of Lisbon.7 The Carreira da Índia, which was centered on Lisbon, had dominated the earlier phase of Portuguese overseas expansion, generating the preponderance of wealth. This was a monopoly venture. Mauro argues that, with the emergence of the free Brazilian sugar trade, the northern ports enjoyed resurgence, since they were effective redistribution centers for northern destinations. Viana and Porto, as well as smaller ports such as Caminha, Aveiro and Vila do Conde had always possessed merchant communities as well as important fishing fleets. When new opportunities beckoned, merchants were quick to seize them, sending their sons to Brazil to become lavradores and senhores do engenho as well as factors and correspondents for sugar trading.8 At the same time, ships that had been employed in fishing were converted for use in trans-Atlantic trading expeditions. Mauro was correct to show that sugar revitalized northern ports, but as Costa has shown, he incorrectly assumed that this growth came at the expense of Lisbon.9 She has, rather, emphasized the interdependency of all of the Portuguese harbors (see Tables A.3 and A.4). Her evidence from notarial contracts offers a compelling argument that this was so. Many of the contracts that she has analyzed show that—on Brazil voyages—a ship might leave one harbor in the metropolis and return

4 According to one English trader it could only be entered with “a fair wind and a fair weather, a smooth and calm water, a spring tide, and that there hath no great water lately fallen on the land . . . for that the said port is as aforesaid full of rocks, shelves and sands.” Quote in Croft, “English Mariners,” 261. 5 Moreira, Os Mercadores de Viana, 26. 6 Ibid., 61. 7 Mauro, Portugal, o Brasil e o Atlântico, 2:255–7. 8 Moreira, Os Mercadores de Viana, 13–23. 9 Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:106.

184

appendix a

to another. In many cases the contracts were loosely prescriptive and captains or agents on board were expected to determine their destination based on information received once the journey was in progress. It seems apparent that a departure and return to the same port was not an invariable rule on trading trips to Brazil. This implies the existence of merchant networks that embraced all of the Portuguese ports, and demonstrates that capital and goods moved freely between them.10 Departure: Lisbon or environs (Seisimbra, Setubal)

Return: Lisbon

Return: Porto

Return: Viana

Return: Porto or Viana

14 37 52 28 54

14 20 7 6 40

0 0 0 1 0

0 10 36 2 0

0 5 0 4 1

1580–89 1590–99 1600–09 1610–19 1620–29

Table A.3

Return: elsewhere or not mentioned

2 9 15 13

Voyages from Lisbon to Brazil in Lisbon notarial contracts: return ports

Source: Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 2:191–216.

Departure from Porto

Return to Porto

Return to Lisbon

3 5 26 45 56

2 2 14 33 46

0 1 1 1 1

1580–89 1590–99 1600–09 1610–19 1620–29 Table A.4

Return to Porto Return or Viana elsewhere or not mentioned 1 1 10 3 0

0 1 1 8 9

Voyages from Porto to Brazil in Porto notarial contracts: return ports

Source: Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 2:191–216.

10 I take this argument from Costa, but I am using her data in a different way, especially in regard to periodization. I believe that this data is far too thin to interpret quantitatively. Rather it shows some typical patterns of trade.

appendix a

185

The other indispensable link in the portuary structure of the sugar trade was the role of the Atlantic islands as intermediary ports-of-call. These served both as markets for goods from mainland Europe and especially as suppliers of wine or grain, which were important sales commodities in Brazil. Indeed, it seems that merchants who were well connected often tried to arrange as many different trading transactions as possible on a single voyage. Typically a trade contract provided for a departure from a port in the metropolis, a stop in Madeira, the Canary Islands or the Azores, to load wine or grain, a voyage on to Brazil, and then a direct return to the metropolis (see Table A.5).

1580–89 1590–99 1600–09 1610–19 1620–29 Total Table A.5

Departure: Portugal

Port of Call: Madeira

Port of Call: Canary Islands

Port of Call: The Azores

17 42 79 73 110 321

2 12 23 2 16 55

2 1 27 26 31 87

0 3 6 3 9 21

Voyages from Portugal to Brazil in Lisbon and Porto notarial contracts: Atlantic Islands

Source: Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 2:191–216.

A few of the freight contracts drafted for Hans de Schot in the 1590s show that foreigners in the Brazil trade before 1605 also adhered to this pattern that encompassed the Atlantic Islands, as well as other ports. In 1595 de Schot freighted the ship Den gulden Leeuw, captained by Ben Jans of Enkhuizen. This large ship—of 300 tons—was to load grain in Danzig for sale in North Africa, a typical circuit for Baltic grain. However, de Schot instructed the shipper then to load wine in Cadiz, the Canary Islands or Madeira and then to sail to Bahia or Pernambuco for merchandise—presumably sugar—to return to Portugal.11 In the next few years he freighted several more Dutch ships for nearly identical patterns of trade.12 In at least one case, he mentioned that a super cargo would travel on board to make the local arrangements.13

11 12 13

GAA, NA, no. 47, 96V. GAA, NA, no. 48, 21; no. 50, 39V; no. 51, 79. GAA, NA, no. 50, 39V.

APPENDIX B

PORTUGAL AND THE DUTCH REPUBLIC IN BALTIC TRADE

1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600 Totals

Lisbon

Setubal

Porto

Viana

Aveiro

Total Contracts*

26 31 12 62 71 0 2 204

66 122 21 54 59 6 17 345

2 0 1 22 18 0 1 44

0 0 1 14 7 0 0 22

1 1 9 1 25 10 13 60

69 125 31 76 102 10 24 437

Table B.1

Portuguese ports of call anticipated in Amsterdam freight contracts involving Baltic trade, 1594–1600

Source: Winkelman, ed. Bronnen voor de geschiedenis van de nederlandse oostzeehandel, vol. 2. These records come from Franssen Bruyningh, who was the notary whose records have survived in the greatest number for this period. As luck would have it, he was also sought out especially for freight contracts involving Baltic trade. There are very few contracts from other notaries in these years for Amsterdam-Baltic Trade. * Since contracts often mention more than one port of call, the totals are generally less than the sum of all the ports mentioned.

Netherlands (Holland) 1558 1560 1562 1563 1564 1565

2 (2) 39 (32) 66 (59) 77 (65) 24 (20) 43 (37) 50

Northwestern Germany

Western Hansa

2

Eastern Hansa

Denmark

Other

Total

9

13

3

2

11

56

2

15

14

97

10

24

13

125

17

42

1

44

1

188

appendix b

Table B.2 (cont.)

1566 1567 1568 1569 1574 1575 1576 1577 1578 1579 1580 1581 1582 1583 1584 1585 1586 1587 1588 1589 1590

Netherlands (Holland)

Northwestern Germany

(41) 100 (86) 63 (54) 3 (2) 21 (21) 11 (11) 40 (38) 61 (44) 135 (101) 129 (103) 83 (61) 91 (66) 72 (62) 74 (66) 89 (80) 47 (44) 18 (18) 12 (11) 3 (2) 3 (2) 93 (78) 165

1 3

Western Hansa

Eastern Hansa

Denmark

Other

Total

3

54

2

13

118

4

6

73

1

4

17

12

36

3

1

90

7

17

28

7

1

71

24

31

36

8

3

142

19

47

30

15

3

175

26

49

38

9

3

261

13

29

19

9

200

3

6

15

6

113

9

37

21

9

167

17

23

22

3

2

22

22

4

3

23

22

6

1

34

24

8

114

1

31

17

7

74

3

53

29

9

106

55

27

8

93

2

57

14

8

5

71

28

15

2

139 124

1

2

145

86 215

appendix b

189

Table B.2 (cont.)

1591 1592 1593 1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600 1601 1602 1603 1604 1605 1606 1607 1608 1609 1610 1611 1612

Netherlands (Holland)

Northwestern Germany

Western Hansa

Eastern Hansa

Denmark

(139) 52 (45) 78 (71) 91 (74) 193 (165) 133 (119) 29 (21) 107 (85) 9 (6) 26 (23) 42 (36) 10 (6) 26 (23) 27 (24) 1 (1)

5

56

27

19

273

6

40

18

9

125

3

39

15

5

141

46

19

8

166

5

31

19

2

253

1

20

7

10

172

11

28

7

5

81

9

18

19

6

159

37

51

34

14

145

45

42

36

22

3

175

17

34

27

14

1

137

6

31

23

5

75

4

32

29

10

102

12

41

21

14

116

13

29 38 65

21 20 25

8 8 15

2 1

73 69 108

2

63

29

13

2

134

31

9

9

1

118

34

3

2

137

37

11

2

181

11

5

19 (19) 67 (56) 97 (83) 131 (123) 53 (48) 157

1

2

Other

3

Total

74

190

appendix b

Table B.2 (cont.)

1613 1614 1615 1616 1617 1618 1619 1620 1621 1622

Netherlands (Holland)

Northwestern Germany

Western Hansa

(141) 142 (123) 105 (94) 134 (126) 208 (189) 165 (155) 112 (107) 81 (76) 29 (27)

1

19

7

4

23

6

2

16

2

2

14

4

1623 1624 1625 1626 1627 1628 1629 1630 Table B.2

2 (1)

1 (1) 3 (3)

Eastern Hansa

Denmark

Other

Total

1

1

186

3

1

179 125

1

156

11

219

1

10

1

13

1

8

2

4

14 17

5 17

2 8

1

25 14 10 23

34 35 6 4

13 6 4

2 1 1

19 6 10

1

1 3

16

1

178 128 95

77 57 22 27 21 8 11

2 1 1

52 47

2

22

Volume of shipping through the Øresund—Ships arriving directly from Portugal by national origin

Source: Bang, N.E., Tabeller over Skibsfart og Varetransport genem Øresund 1497–1669. Vol. 1. 1928, Copenhagen: Gyldenalske Boghandel. Ships traveling directly into the Baltic Sea from Portugal were most likely to be carrying salt.

APPENDIX C

FREIGHT CHARGES

1580 1581 1582 1583 1584 1585 1586 1587 1588 1589 1590 1591 1592 1593 1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600 1601 1602 1603 1604 1605 1606 1607 1608 1609 1610 1611 1612 1613 1614 1615 1616 1617

5800

6400 6500 8000 8700 8500 8000 9500 9000 9600 9750 10500 10000 11000 10600 10700 10750 10350 10300 9600 10200 10100 10000 10000 9800 10000 9000 8280 9000 8800 8800 9160 8820

192

appendix c

Table C.1 (cont.) 1618 1619 1620 1621 1622 1623 1624 1625 1626 1627 1628 1629 1630 Table C.1

9500 9500 9000 9660 7600 10000 12500 15000 14950 15000

Freight charges: Brazil to Portugal, reis per ton

Source: Costa, O transporte no Atlântico, 1:371.

Date 12–5– 1608 5–15– 1609 7–28– 1609 9–18– 1609

Quantity

Origin

Destination

Return

Ship size in lasts

A’dam

Aveiro

A’dam

45

Viana

A’dam

70

Algarve

A’dam

106

Lisbon/ Porto/ Viana or Condado Porto/ Viana

A’dam

120

A’dam/ Dunkirk (Antwerp)

140

A’dam/ Dunkirk (Antwerp) A’dam

50 40

A’dam

60

full cargo/ A’dam minimum 60 lasts A’dam/ Danzig A’dam

3–3– 1610

A’dam

7–13– 1610

A’dam

4–7– 1611

Rotterdam Viana

10–26– 100 1611 crates

Texel (A’dam)

Algarve

Viana

Freight Charge 4 gld. per chest of sugar 1,650 gld. total 30 gld. per Condado* last 27 gld. per last, i.e. 152 arrobas sumac, 170 arrobas sugar, 4 pipes wine 30 gld. per last, i.e. per 10 large or small crates of sugar 27 gld. per last, i.e. 10 crates sugar per last 28 gld. per last, i.e. 8 crates sugar per last 380 gld. for 100 crates, includes freight for outward journey

appendix c

193

Table C.2 (cont.) Date

Quantity

Origin

Destination

Return

Ship size in lasts

4–20– 1612 9–1– 1612 11–13– 1617

200 crates 150 crates 650 crates

A’dam

Viana

A’dam

55

A’dam

Viana

A’dam

60

A’dam

Viana

Livorno, 120 France, Holland or Hamburg

9–10– 1620

A’dam

A’dam

32

3–23– 1623

A’dam/ Calais or Dover A’dam

Vila do Conde/ Porto Algarve

A’dam

75

A’dam

50 80

50

3–17– 1626

Aveiro/ Porto

7–25– 1627

A’dam

8–2– 1627

A’dam

Faro (sailing A’dam around England and Scotland) Faro A’dam

8–27– 1627

A’dam

Faro

A’dam

40

9–1– 1627

A’dam

Algarve

A’dam

40

11–24– 1627

A’dam

Faro

A’dam

25

Table C.2

Freight Charge 740 gld. total, i.e. both ways 3 gld. 13 st. per crate of sugar Italy: 9 gld, 10 st. per crate; France or Holland: 4 gld.; Hamburg: 4 ½ gld. 1,100 gld. total 60 gld. per last/4,000 pounds sugar per last 65 gld. per last, 8 crates of sugar per last 84 gld. per last, 8 crates of sugar per last 84 gld. per last, 8 crates of sugar per last 80 gld. per last, 8 crates of sugar per last 80 gld. per last, 8 crates of sugar per last 85 gld. per last, 8 crates of sugar per last.

Freight charges for sugar, Portugal to the Dutch Republic

Source: Koen, “Notarial Records,” 4, no. 2 (1970): 254; 5, no. 1 (1971): 107–8, 115, 119–20; 5, no. 2 (1971): 230–1, 235; 6, no. 1 (1972): 107–8, 114; 11, no. 2 (1977): 160; 17, no. 1 (1983): 78; 23, no. 1 (1989): 207; 32, no. 1 (1998): 88; 35, no. 1 (2001): 69, 70, 76, 77, 87. * The Condaet or Condado was technically the region between the rivers Guadiana and Guadalquivir in Andalusia, but also sometimes meant the Algarve. Contracts for the southern coast of Spain and Portugal were quite often loosely prescriptive, suggesting that the captain visit a number of ports until he got a full cargo. Koen, “Notarial Records,” 1, no. 2 (1967): 113.

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INDEX

Adriaensz, Joris 82, 87 n. 4 Adrião, João 79 Alfândega (Customs House) 1, 41, 87 Algarve 42, 59, 141, 153, 169, 192–193 Almirantazgo 52, 59, 61, 164 Álvares, João 78 Amsterdam 31 n. 45, 38, 61, 71–72; immigration to 38, 61, 72 Angola 67 n. 15, 74, 81, 105, 126, 126 n. 60 Antwerp 5 n. 5, 12, 14, 17, 19 n. 1, 21 n. 12, 22–25, 29–30, 30 n. 43, 31, 31 n. 45, 32, 32 n. 52, 33 n. 52, 37–38, 44, 44 n. 23, 47, 54, 61–62, 70–72, 72 n. 38, 74–77, 77 n. 55, 78–81, 81 n. 64, 82–83, 110, 111 n. 7, 112–113, 113 n. 11, 114, 119, 121, 125, 127–128, 136–137, 139 n. 22, 141–142, 144, 147, 155 n. 9, 157, 160, 160 n. 20, 161 n. 21, 162, 162 nn. 22–23, 163, 165, 173 Arroba. See Measurements Atlantic Trade; historiography 5, 61, 63 n. 6; 118 n. 30; integration in 64, 132, 148; inter-imperial cooperation in 165, 179 Azevedo, Álvaro de 73, 155 n. 10 Azores (São Miguel and Terceira) 28, 42, 133 n. 3, 140–141, 185 Baack, Cipriaan Joosten 78 Baack, Laurens Joosten 78 Baeck, Laurens Joosten 103 Bahia 12, 44, 58–59, 65–66, 68, 74, 82, 88, 91, 104, 114–116, 121, 125, 140, 147, 154–155, 167, 181 Banks; wisselbank, kassiersbedrijf 112 Barbary (Salé); pirates 1, 91 Barros, Damian de 78 Basiliers de Jonge, Gasper 80 Bavaria 17 Becque, Louis del 137, 137 n. 17, 138 Beer, Lenardo de 103 Beltgens, Pieter 82, 138 n. 18 Bolsa. See Merchant

Bottomry; loans 29 n. 39, 67, 111, 114, 125–128; contracts 15, 67, 97, 125–126, 126 n. 60, 128, 136, 172, 178 Bravo, Pasqual 66 Bravo, Álvaro Gomes 98, 120 n. 39 Brazil, sugar production 39, 105, 140, 177–178; foreign residents 51 n. 52; prohibitions against foreigners 13, 48, 50–52, 82; ports 14, 51, 85–86, 88–89, 106, 121, 139, 181; illegal trade 47, 131–133, 136–137, 147, 164–165; Dutch invasions 39, 105, 140, 177–178 Brazilwood 24, 40, 48, 51–52, 55, 64, 66, 72, 76, 79, 80 n. 63, 103 n. 52, 115, 133, 142, 143 n. 35, 166 Brito, Francisco Pinto de 56 n. 69, 72 Bruges 21–25, 32, 111 Cabo Frio 39, 133 Cáceres, Francisco de 68, 114, 120 n. 39, 124 Cáceres, Simão Rodrigues de 124–125 Cadiz 70, 117 n. 25, 127, 134, 134 n. 6, 136, 185 Caminho, Diego Lopes 134 Canary Islands 55 n. 68, 79–80, 122, 136–138, 145, 185 Cardoso, Antonio Mendes 114 Cardoso, Gonçalo 69, 69 n. 24, 72 Cardoso, Ruy Fernandes 72–73 Carlos, Antonio Mendez 122 Carreira da India 28, 65, 93, 183 Carvalho, Sebastião 51 Casa da Mina 29, 29 n. 39 Cascais 98 Chaves, Antonio Ruiz 115 Claessen, Claes 79, 136 Clarisse, Pieter (Pedro) 25, 74, 125, 154, 156 n. 12, 160 Cologne 17, 25, 29–31, 71 Companhia Geral do Comércio do Brasil 4 n. 4, 64 Concelho Ultramarino 41 Conselho da Fazenda 41, 66 Consuentia, Francisco Manuel 78

206

index

Cordts, Jan 121 Costs; transportation 14, 85, 96, 165; protection 168; freight charges 14, 170; See also Taxes, Ships, Transaction Costs Court, Julien del 121 Coutinho, Gonçalo Lopes 73 Cunertorf, Gasper 75–77, 77 n. 54 Cunha, Luís da 68, 68 n. 19 Cunha, Paulo Lopes 67, 67 n. 18, 155 n. 10 D’Andrade (merchant house) 69, 74, 77 D’Elvas, Fernão Rodrigues 68, 69 n. 22 D’Evora (merchant house) 30 D’Evora, Rodrigo da Veiga 68 D’Orta, Rui Diaz 115 Danzig 2, 25–27, 34, 76–77, 77 n. 55, 80 n. 63, 99, 115, 185 Denmark 73 Drake, Francis 135 Dubois, Jehan 121 Dumolijn, Pieter 138, 138 nn. 18–19 Dutch Republic 13; taxes 1, 13–14, 16, 41–43; trade policy 44, 50; see also Staten Generaal Eighty Year War 27, 40, 46, 60, 177 Emden 27, 49 n. 42, 77 n. 55, 123, 137 Engenho. See Sugar Enkhuizen 76, 79 n. 59, 185 Enriques, Francisco Lopes 115 Entre Minho e Douro (Portuguese province) 86 Espírito Santo 69, 140, 140 n. 27, 142, 181 Faillero (merchant house) 72 Fernandes, João 79 Fernandes, Duarte 56 n. 69, 72, 138 n. 18 Fernandes, Luís 71, 77 n. 55, 121 Fernandes, Raphael 81 Filter, João 74 Finance; credit 1, 5 n. 5, 6, 15, 34, 74, 87, 98, 109–111, 111 n. 8, 112, 113 n. 12, 114, 114 n. 15, 115, 117, 128, 178; letters of credit (IOU’s, letters obligatory) 1, 128; letters of exchange 42, 67, 111; interest 9, 11, 53–54, 92 n. 15, 111, 114, 124, 138 n. 19, 153; negotiability 15,

111–112, 128, 178; futures speculation 113; discounting 113, 113 n. 13, 114; terms of payment 113; portfolio diversification 65 Flanders 19, 21, 21 n. 12, 22, 41, 41 n. 6, 66–67, 70, 76 n. 49 Florence 70 Fonseca, Diogo da 69, 69 n. 24, 72 Framengo, Alberto 79 France 9, 12, 20, 26, 35, 53, 73 n. 42, 120, 120 n. 40, 144 Freight charges. See Ships Garces, Hendrick 56 n. 69, 72, 81 Geertsz, Pauwels 79 Germany 2, 17, 19–20, 24, 30, 38, 67, 73 n. 41, 83, 106, 156 Gheel, Daniel van 120 n. 39 Gheel, Jan van 120 n. 39, 124 Gijsbertsz, Hendrick 81 Glommer, Willem Joost ten 78 Glückstadt 73 Góes, Marcos de 43 n. 14, 68, 159 Gomes, Gabriel 66 Goudick, Marie 74 Habet, Engel 139 Habsburg Monarchy 43; trade policies, war against England 56, 135, 178; war against the Dutch Republic 40, 47–48, 52, 54, 60, 83 Hals, João 75 Hamburg 5 n. 5, 12, 27, 30–31, 34, 38, 50 n. 45, 61–62, 66, 69 n. 24, 70–72, 72 n. 38, 73, 75, 77 n. 55, 79, 90, 119, 133–134, 136, 141, 147, 156 n. 13, 157, 162 n. 22, 164, 173 Hansa League 26–27, 34, 49–50, 113, 168, 187–190 Hawkins, William 142 Heyn, Piet 58, 116, 132, 147, 154, 174 n. 39 Hilst, Jan van 78 Holland 17, 34, 36, 44, 46, 50, 52, 54, 55 nn. 66, 68, 59, 71, 80, 100–101, 119–120, 123, 136, 145 Holy Office, (Portuguese Inquisition) trial records 16, 43 n. 14, 65, 67–68, 75, 98; effects on trade 7, 57 n. 74, 62, 127 Hoppenhaer, Andries 79 Hulscher, Adam 79, 136 Hulscher, Duarte Osquer 79 Hulscher, Guilherme 79

index Hulscher, Hendrick 79 Hulscher, João 79, 79 n. 62 Hulscher, Manuel van Dale 79 Husen, Pedro van 66, 75 n. 47 Ilhéus 133 Insurance; policies 67, 114, 121, 121 n. 48, 122–124, 172, 175, 178; courts 118–120; fraud 41, 47, 48, 49 n. 42, 78, 104, 124–125, 131–132, 134, 139–141, 146; policies on ‘good tidings’ 125; brokers 22, 42, 119, 121, 152, 160, 162, 166; see also Bottomry Jannsen, Jan 76 Jews; Cristãos Novos 6–7, 61–64, 66, 179; in Amsterdam 6 n. 8, 59 n. 81 Kampen

76–77

Last. See Measurements Laet, Johannes de 58, 58 n. 78 Leicester, Earl of 53 Lemos, Francisco de 122 Letters (Bills) of Exchange. See Finance Letters of Credit (IOUs). See Finance Lisbon 4, 16, 18–19, 21 n. 10, 25–26, 28–29, 29 n. 39, 31–32, 34–35, 40, 42, 43, 43 n. 17, 45, 49 n. 40, 50–52, 55, 55 n. 66, 61, 65–66, 66 n. 14, 69–76, 76 n. 49, 77, 77 n. 55, 78, 78 n. 58, 79, 79 n. 62, 80, 86–87, 91 n. 15, 94 n. 21, 98–99, 106, 115, 117, 117 n. 25, 118, 121, 121 n. 48, 125–126, 126 n. 60, 136, 138, 143 n. 35, 147, 154, 155 n. 10, 156 n. 12, 159–160, 162, 162 n. 22, 162, 165, 168, 170, 170 nn. 32–33, 171, 171 n. 34, 181–183, 187, 192 London 6–7, 25, 31–32, 34, 48, 119, 119 n. 34, 133 n. 3, 142–144, 147 Lopes, Cristovão 70, 70 n. 26 Lopez, Andre 66, 72, 123 Lucas, Pieter 79 Lübeck 26, 72 n. 38, 90, 134 Madeira 2, 10 n. 19, 23–24, 28, 29 n. 37, 30, 31 n. 46, 32, 41, 42, 68, 73, 73 n. 42, 73 n. 42, 74, 80, 80 n. 63, 96, 109, 160 n. 20, 177, 185 Madrid 51–52, 121 Maranhão 133 Martens, Jan 121

207

Martensz, Willem 121 Massarelos 98 Matheus, Manuel 125 Matosinhos 98 Medeiros, Manuel de 69 Mercado, Fernando de 72 Mercantilism 8, 8 n. 12, 9, 11, 13, 179 Merchants; networks 14–15, 62–65, 68–69, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 179, 184; nations 6–7, 138; disputes 24, 41, 86, 110, 117–120, 124; arbitration 119; network failure 10, 12, 127 Measurements and weights; last 2, 17, 22, 26, 31 n. 45, 34, 58–59, 79, 90, 102–103, 106, 125, 144, 154, 168–169; ton 1–2, 20, 26, 28 n. 54, 32–33, 90–93, 102, 104 n. 54, 105, 139, 144, 166–170, 171 n. 34, 173, 185; pipa 1–2; arroba 3, 24, 43–44, 58 n. 78, 105, 110, 151–152, 155 n. 11, 156, 162 n. 72, 166, 169–170, 171 n. 34, 173; kilogram 1, 3, 82, 162 n. 22 Michielsen, Pieter 137 Minnes, Cornelis Adriaensz 104 Miranda, Luís Pereira de 114, 120 n. 39 Moere, Julio van den 79 Montafaux, João Poré 79 Moura, Alexandre de 51, 135 Nieuw Holland (Dutch Brazil) 59, 178 Notaries 4, 16, 62, 68–69, 71–72, 78–79, 81–82, 86, 91, 99, 104, 122, 124–126, 136, 138, 141, 162, 166, 168, 181, 185 Novais, Bento 68, 68 n. 19 Oldenbarnevelt, Johan van 54, 57 Olinda 51, 59, 79, 142 Osorio, Bento 72 Ost, Pedro de la 79 Otter, Floris den 78 Otter, Hillebrant den 78, 81 n. 64 Palácios, Duarte de 66 Palácios, Francisco de 65–66, 67 n. 16, 70 n. 25, 98, 126 n. 60, 127 Palácios, Jacome de 66 Paraíba 51, 137 Pastoor, Dirck Willemsz 136 Pauthere, Pedro de 75 Pels, Gaspar 74, 76 n. 49 Peniche 98

208

index

Pereira, Baltasar da 66 Pernambuco 1, 51, 65, 68, 78–79, 82, 88, 102, 106, 121, 126, 134–135, 137, 140–141, 146, 155, 178, 181–182, 185 Philip II (of Spain) 43, 46, 46 n. 31, 47–48, 49, 51, 133, 172 Philip III (of Spain) 48–49, 51 Pietersz, Huijbert 104 Pimentel, Garcia 71 Pina, Tomás Nunes 104, 141 Pinto, Andrea Lopes 72 Pinto, Diogo Lopes 103, 120 n. 39 Pinto, José 124–125 Pinto, Rui Vaz (governor of Rio de Janeiro) 139 Piper (Pijper), João 75 Piper, Arnao 75 Piper, Miguel 75 Pipa. See Measurements Piracy; English 27, 31, 31 n. 45, 32, 32 n. 52, 33, 47, 50 n. 45, 53, 90, 102, 117 nn. 25–26, 133, 133 n. 3, 135, 142, 143, 143 n. 38, 144, 144 n. 38, 145–146; French 10, 19 n. 1, 36, 50 n. 45, 53, 119–121, 125, 135, 139 n. 24, 142, 145–146; Barbary 1, 33, 91, 145 n. 43 Pompejo, Guilherme Martins 79 Porto 1–2, 4, 4 n. 3, 43 n. 14, 52, 61, 66 n. 14, 67, 67 n. 17, 68–69, 71 n. 28, 73, 75, 76 n. 49, 79, 86, 91 n. 15, 98, 103, 104, 106, 114, 117, 121, 121 n. 48, 124, 126, 126 n. 60, 139, 146, 155 n. 11, 168, 170, 181–183 Porto Calvo 79 Ports (harbors) 13, 19 n. 1, 25–27, 31, 36, 44, 47, 49–50, 52–54, 59, 72 n. 38, 86–88, 90–92, 94, 106, 116 n. 22, 136, 142, 158, 168, 183; facilities 42, 98, 128, tolls and customs (avarias); 95; silting 44; turnaround time in 87, 106 Prices 1, 11, 15, 44 n. 23, 86, 110, 116, 133 n. 3, 147, 151, 151–154, 156, 156 n. 12, 160, 162–163, 170 n. 32, 175; of sugar 158, 160–161, 162 n. 22, 164; convergence 158, 162, 164–165, 171 Privateering 15, 27, 33, 47, 61, 106, 118, 129, 131, 142–144, 146–148, 168, 171, 173, 178; English 47, Dunkirk 33, 49 n. 40, 59, 94, 94

n. 23, 169, 192, Dutch 27, 173. See also Piracy Profit, margins 16, 169–170, 172, 179; premium of arbitrage 117, 141, 151, 156 n. 12, 164, 170, 170 n. 32, 171, 175 Recife 1, 59, 140, 146, 158 Rego, Gaspar Caminho 141 Rio de Janeiro 66, 68, 79, 88, 119, 124, 126 n. 60, 138–140, 146, 155, 155 n. 11, 158, 181 Rocha, Sebastião da 135 Rotterdam 27, 36, 44, 53, 71, 81, 81 n. 64, 104, 119 n. 34, 121, 169 Rouen 71, 115 Sampaio, Diego Teixeira de 70 Sanches, Pero Dias 69 Santarem, Pedro de 118 Santo Agostinho 79 São Tomé 2, 23, 24, 30, 76, 87, 105, 109, 145, 161, 177 São Vicente 78, 78 n. 58, 138, 142 Sas, Barent 56 n. 70, 81 Schetz, Erasmus 78, 113 Schot, Hans de 79–80, 80 n. 63, 139 n. 22, 144 n. 38, 146, 185 Sebastião (King of Portugal) 48, 51, 135, 138 n. 18 Setubal 30, 35–36, 42, 52, 54, 182 Seville 25, 29, 48 n. 40, 52, 66, 70, 132 Ships 1–3, 5, 12, 14, 20, 24, 24 n. 21, 26–28, 31, 31 n. 46, 32–36, 40, 46–50, 50 n. 45, 51–54, 55 n. 69, 66, 72, 74 n. 42, 77, 79 n. 62, 80, 80 n. 62, 85–89, 89 n. 8, 90–92, 92 n. 18, 93–94, 94 n. 22, 95, 97–101, 101 n. 44, 102–103, 103 n. 52, 104–106, 115–118, 121, 124, 126 n. 57, 131, 133, 133 n. 3, 134 n. 6, 135–148, 153, 158, 167–169, 182–183, 185; operating costs 85, 88–89, 93–97, 106; freight charges 33, 44 n. 22, 89, 95–97, 99, 105–106, 148, 165–168, 170–171, 171 n. 34 freight contracts 59, 65 n. 12, 68, 69 n. 22, 80, 80 n. 63, 86, 86 n. 2, 88, 90, 91 n. 15, 92 n. 18, 95, 97, 141, 166, 168, 175, 182–183, 185; cost of ships 86, 101, 167; captains 27, 50; crews 28, 94, 148; patterns of investment 67 n. 16; types; 85, 91

index tonnage 89 n. 8, 90, 91 n. 15, 93, 100, 102, 106; cargoes 20, 31–32, 40, 55 n. 69, 69, 87, 92, 98–99, 158, 168; value to bulk ratios of cargoes 89, 91, 116; supply of shipping 47, 53, 85–86, 97, 99, 148, 168; shipwreck 98, 124–5 Silva, Antonio Teles da 65 Sinel (Snel), Balthasar Pels 75, 75 n. 48, 77 Snel, Hans 75–77, 110 Snellinck, Cornelis 80–81, 81 n. 64, 121, 137 Spanooghe, Maximilaan 74 Spelman, Adriaan 76 Spilbergen, Joris van 56, 138 Staten Generaal (States General) 43, 45, 50, 52–57, 71, 104, 119–123, 138 Sugar; white 3, 43, 45 n. 29, 78, 154–155, 156 n. 12, 157, 159–161, 163–164, 170–171; moscovado 3, 78, 153 n. 4, 154–155, 155 n. 11, 156 n. 12, 157, 159, 160–161, 163, 164, 171; panela 3, 153 n. 4, 154–155, 156 n. 12, 159–161, 163–164; crates 1–2, 24, 32, 43, 58, 76, 78, 82, 103 n. 52, 104, 116, 117 n. 24, 146–147, 155 n. 10, 162 n. 23, 166, 168, 169, 173, 192–193; prices 1, 11, 15, 43 n. 17, 44 n. 23, 45 n. 29, 59, 86, 97, 99, 101, 110, 113, 116, 128, 133 n. 3, 141, 147–148, 151–156, 156 n. 12, 157–160, 160 n. 20, 161, 161 n. 21, 162, 162 n. 22, 163–166, 170 n. 32, 171, 175; demand 11, 15, 19, 25, 28, 34–35, 54, 59, 76, 82, 85, 97, 102, 144, 146–147, 151–153, 156–158, 164, 168, 175, 177, 179; supply 11, 14–15, 25, 35, 47–48, 53, 59–60, 85–86, 88, 90, 97–100, 106, 110, 114, 128, 146, 148, 151, 153, 156, 163, 168, 175, 179; from Brazil 3, 11, 25, 26, 45 n. 27, 60, 74, 87 n. 3, 105, 142, 155, 156 n. 12; from São Tomé 24, 76; from Madeira 24, 41, 109; 74 n. 42, 160 n. 20; weight of crates 161, 166, 168–169; damage during transport 57–58, 107, 132; plantations (Engenhos) 41, 78, 79, 151, 152 Taxes 45, 45 n. 27; Dízima 41–43; Convooien en Licenten 44–45, 171; state income from 16, 60

209

Texeira, Francisco 66 Tonnage. See Ships Trade Commodities; wine 1, 10 n. 19, 25–26, 28 n. 34, 31–32, 76, 80 n. 63, 86, 95, 104, 133 n. 3, 134, 134 n. 6, 172, 185, 192; spices 20, 24, 30, 58, 70; cloth 28, 31, 76, 133 n. 3, 137, 139 n. 23, 174; oil 25, 31, 95, 134, 134 n. 6, 168, 172; timber 26, 76; grain 2, 19–20, 25–26, 28, 28 n. 34, 30, 34–35, 54, 66, 70, 75, 76, 80 n. 63, 90–91, 94 n. 22, 135, 144, 153, 169, 185 Trade; Atlantic routes 116, 178; Baltic routes 27, 28 n. 34, 37, 49, 90, 92, 187; North Sea routes 25–28, 35, 135; Asian routes 19–20, 54, 125; illegal and contraband 10 n. 19, 15, 47–48, 52, 131–133, 135–137, 140, 165, 169, 178, 133 n. 3, 147, 164–165; free 11–12, 39–41, 46, 49, 53, 55, 55 n. 66, 56, 60, 114, 123, 133–134, 138, 164, 177, 178–179, 183–184; slave 74, 133 n. 3; bulk trades 19–20, 24, 30, 36, 38, 115, 135; moedernegotie 36; see also Mercantilism 8, 8 n. 12, 9, 11, 13, 179 Transaction costs 14–16, 85, 85 n. 1, 97, 105, 106, 109, 115, 124, 148, 151, 175, 178 Twelve Year Truce 35, 38, 50, 54 n. 65, 56, 62, 72, 92, 102, 103 n. 51, 105–106, 122, 124, 136, 139, 145, 156 n. 13, 164, 167, 170, 174, 175, 177, 179 Usselincx, Willem Utrecht 78–79

9, 54, 56–57

Vadar, Jeronimo da 75 Vader, Hieronymus de 80 Vasconcelos, Luís Mendes 35 Veiga, Antonio Rodrigues de 74 Veiga, Manuel Rodrigues da 71–72, 81 Venice 41 n. 6, 70–71, 121, 127 Viana do Castelo 4 n. 3 Viegas, Antonio Martins 69 n. 22, 103 Vieira, Padre Antonio 115 Vitória, Domingos Lopes 68 Vitoria, Pedro Aires 68 VOC (Vereignegte Oost-Insische Compagnie) 9, 54, 57, 138, 174, 174 n. 39

210

index

Volarte, Baltasar 79 Vooren, Pieter Jansen 103 Vosdonck, Claes van 79 Walle, Thomas van de 79 WIC (West-Indische Compagnie) ix, 5, 9, 12, 40, 53, 54 n. 65, 57–60, 72, 88, 91, 99, 116, 118, 122, 126, 132, 141, 147–148, 154, 156, 164, 167, 169, 173, 175, 178

Ximenes (merchant house) Ximenes, Rodrigo 121

30, 70, 72

Zeeland 17, 34, 36, 38, 44–46, 53–54, 77 n. 55, 88, 116, 116 n. 24, 120, 122, 123, 127, 136, 145, 147

The Atlantic World ISSN 1570–0542

1. Postma, J. & V. Enthoven (eds.). Riches from Atlantic Commerce. Dutch Transatlantic Trade and Shipping, 1585-1817. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12562 0 2. Curto, J.C. Enslaving Spirits. The Portuguese-Brazilian Alcohol Trade at Luanda and its Hinterland, c. 1550-1830. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13175 2 3. Jacobs, J. New Netherland. A Dutch Colony in Seventeenth-Century America. 2004. ISBN 90 04 12906 5 4. Goodfriend, J.D. (ed.). Revisiting New Netherland. Perspectives on Early Dutch America. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14507 9 5. Macinnes, A.I. & A.H. Williamson (eds.). Shaping the Stuart World, 16031714. The Atlantic Connection. 2006. ISBN 90 04 14711 X 6. Haggerty, S. The British-Atlantic Trading Community, 1760-1810. Men, Women, and the Distribution of Goods. 2006. ISBN 90 04 15018 8 7. Kleijwegt, M. (ed.). The Faces of Freedom. The Manumission and Emancipation of Slaves in Old World and New World Slavery. 2006. ISBN 90 04 15082 X 8. Emmer, P.C., O. Pétré-Grenouilleau & J. Roitman (eds.). A Deus ex Machina Revisited. Atlantic Colonial Trade and European Economic Development. 2006. ISBN 90 04 15102 8 9. Fur, G. Colonialism in the Margins. Cultural Encounters in New Sweden and Lapland. 2006. ISBN 978 90 04 15316 5 10. McIntyre, K.K. & R.E. Phillips (eds.). Woman and Art in Early Modern Latin America. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15392 9 11. Roper, L.H. & B. Van Ruymbeke (eds.). Constructing Early Modern Empires. Proprietary Ventures in the Atlantic World, 1500-1750. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15676 0 12. Newson, L.A. & S. Minchin. From Capture to Sale. The Portuguese Slave Trade to Spanish South America in the Early Seventeenth Century. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15679 1 13. Evans, C. & G. Rydén. Baltic Iron in the Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 16153 5 14. Frijhoff, W. Transl. by M. Heerspink Scholz. Fulfilling God’s Mission: The Two Worlds of Dominie Everardus Bogardus, 1607-1647. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 16211 2 15. Goodfriend J.D., B. Schmidt & A. Stott (eds.). Going Dutch: The Dutch Presence in America 1609-2009. 2008. ISBN 978 90 04 16368 3 16. Ebert, C. Between Empires: Brazilian Sugar in the Early Atlantic Economy, 1550-1630. 2008. ISBN 978 90 04 16768 1