Eighteenth century Baltic coffee trade.

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Eighteenth century Baltic coffee trade.

A study based on the STRO.

Thesis Research Master Modern History & International Relations Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Student: Maarten Draper

Student number: 1766791

Email: m.draper@student.rug.nl

Address: Nassauplein 12a, 9717CR Groningen

Tel. nr.: 0613056729

Supervisor: dr. J.W. Veluwenkamp Second Examiner: dr. M. Uebele

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Introduction

Coffee is the second most valuable trade commodity in the modern world, after oil. Its success is based on the fact that it contains caffeine, the world's most popular psychoactive drug.1_Coffee first became fashionable in aristocratic circles in the 1650s in Northwestern Europe, and over the subsequent hundred years coffee spread to wider circles through coffee houses which popped-up in European cities. By the end of the eighteenth century, coffee had become an integral part of the domestic life across all classes.2_{Life without coffee has become} unimaginable, and unbearable, for many Europeans. To satisfy the continent’s dependence, 45% of the world export of 6.5 million tons of coffee was exported to Europe from June 2013 to May 2014. Coffee consumption is highest in Scandinavia, with the world leaders in coffee consumption Finland, consuming consumes 12 kg of coffee per capita annually.3

Coffee production starts with the coffee tree. Two types are commonly cultivated: coffea arabica (arabica coffee) and coffea canephora (robusta coffee). The flesh is removed from the berry of the tree, leaving only the seed. The seed, or coffee bean, is then roasted and ground. To prepare the coffee drink, hot water is added to the ground coffee. This can be done in multiple ways, each leading to different results. The aroma and taste of coffee are enjoyable, although some find it bitter, and therefore add sugar or milk. Coffee contains no significant nutritional value. In situations where no clean water is available, coffee is however a safe way to consume water, as the water is boiled prior to adding to it to the coffee beans. This is relevant because when coffee was introduced in Europe the alternative to drinking safe water was alcoholic beverages. Coffee, together with the similar product tea, was therefore an alternative for beer and wine.4

Coffee originates from the mountains of Ethiopia. It is said that there, in the kingdom of Kefa, the Oromo people were the first to consume coffee some 1,500-3,000 years ago. The Oromos did not drink coffee, instead they ate their coffee beans, the legend says, following the example of the dancing goats (who were presumably high on coffee). Through trade the beans reached the Arab markets in the city of Harrar. In the Harrar area, coffee was cultivated at a higher altitude, and as a consequence the plant evolved into the Arabica species that is known

1_{Mark Pendergrast, ‘Coffee’, in: The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History (Oxford, 2003)} http://www.oxfordreference.com, accessed on 9-5-2015.

2_{Woodruff D. Smith, ‘From coffee house to parlour. The consumption of coffee, tea and sugar in} north-western Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, in: Jordan Goodman, Paul E. Lovejoy and Andrew Sherratt (eds.), Consuming Habits: Drugs in History and Anthropology (London: Routledge, 1995) 142-177, 143-144.

3_{http://www.ecf-coffee.org/about-coffee/coffee-consumption-in-europe (European Coffee Foundation),} accessed on 10-5-2015.

4_{David A. Bender, ‘coffee’, in: A Dictionary of Food and Nutrition (Oxford, 2014).}

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6 today. It was also in Ethiopia, probably in the fifteenth century, that 'modern coffee' was invented when boiling water was added to ground roasted coffee beans. From Harrar coffee was brought by Arab traders across the Bab el-Mandeb Strait (the strait between the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden) to Yemen, which developed into the world center of the production and trade of coffee.5

Coffee arrived in Europe via the Mediterranean and gained popularity among the upper classes in England, France, the Dutch Republic, Austria, and Italy around 1650. Coffee houses started to appear in large cities as it became fashionable to discuss current affairs and politics whilst enjoying a cup of coffee. Despite its rising popularity coffee production remained limited to Yemen until the 1690s. In this period Yemen exported 9-10 million kg of coffee, of which perhaps 1 million kg reached Western Europe. This changed when Europeans managed to produce coffee themselves: first the Dutch on Java, then the French on Réunion, and later by the French and English in the Caribbean. The increased production led to lower prices and generated broader interest in coffee. The demand grew quickly and by the 1780s Europe annually consumed 50 million kg of coffee.6

The diffusion of coffee consumption in Europe was part of broader trend, which some historians have dubbed ‘the consumer revolution’.7_{From the seventeenth century onwards,} starting first in the more economically advanced regions of Europe, consumption patterns changed as new and ‘exotic’ luxury goods became available, affordable, and popular among the emerging middle-classes. Sugar, tea, coffee, porcelain, Indian and Chinese textiles consumption expanded as fashion and leisure opportunities became criteria when purchasing goods, in addition to necessity. Some goods, such as coffee, tea and sugar eventually lost their ‘exotic connotation’ and became goods of mass consumption.8_{Jan de Vries has related the these} changes in household consumption patterns to increased working hours and a shift from production for domestic use to market oriented production in his theory of ‘the Industrious Revolution’. He argues that the availability of these so-called luxury wares stimulated households to change their behavior, in order to able to purchase these wares.9

In order to meet the growing demand for luxury wares, European traders sought to acquire already existing trade with Asia, such as the spice trade, by circumventing the

5_{Steward Lee Allen, The Devils Cup (New York, 1999) 12-13. Mark Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds. The} History of Coffee and How I Transformed Our World (New York, 2001) 4-5.

6_{Jan de Vries, The industrious revolution. Consumer behavior and the household economy, 1650 to the}

present (Cambridge 2008) 156-157.

7_{Cissie Fairchilds, ‘Review: Consumption in Early Modern Europe. A Review Article’, Comparative Studies}

in Society and History, Vol. 35, No. 4. (Octpber, 1993) 851.

8_{John E. Wills Jr, ‘European consumption and Asian production in the seventeenth and eighteenth} centuries’, in: John Brewer & Roy Porter (ed.), Consumption and the World of Goods (London, 1993) 133-147, 134.

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7 East and its middle-men. However, this did not provide enough of these products, and therefore additional production was organized to meet the demands of the European market. Indeed, one of the main motives for colonizing the Americas was to produce commodities such as sugar and coffee. However, Europeans also colonized land in Asia in order to produce certain crops. A share of the colonial goods was destined for the home market of the colonial powers. Another share was re-exported to other countries of Europe which did not have their own colonies or direct trade relations with the non-European world. This is how colonial commodities made their way from Western Europe to the rest of Europe. Countries such as Great Britain and the Dutch Republic traded their ‘new wares’ for ‘the traditional wares’ of their European trading partners. In this process the new overseas markets were integrated in traditional European markets.

In this research it is one of these European markets that will be the subject of further study: the Baltic area market. In the early modern period, the Baltic region is mainly known for its export of bulk goods. The countries bordering the Baltic Sea produced high-volume raw materials. Poland mainly exported cereals, Finland tar, Russia hemp and flax, and Sweden mainly exported iron. The imports of the Baltic area consisted mainly of salt, wine, herring, textiles, building materials, and precious metals. The latter were brought to the Baltic to balance the trade between Western Europe and the Baltic area. Not only was the volume of the Baltic area’s export larger than the volume of its import, which explains why many ships set sail for the Baltic in ballast, the value of Baltic export was also higher than the value of its import. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries colonial wares were added to category of products that could be exported to the Baltic area by Western Europe.

The ongoing digitalization of the Sound Toll Registers (into the Sound Toll Registers Online or STRO) offers the possibility to study the trade of specific colonial wares in the Baltic. Until the launch of the STRO, it was problematic to study the trade in colonial products in the Baltic region because in the famous Sound Toll Tables (STT) colonial commodities (sugar, coffee, cocoa, etc.) were merged into one category: ‘colonial wares’.10_{Research into the trade of} individual products such as sugar was therefore not possible. However, it is worthwhile to study these goods individually because the trade of these goods differed per good. Goods were produced in different areas, were traded in different ports, and were also shipped by different nations. It is therefore reasonable to expect that the trade pattern of the eighteenth century cacao trade was different from the eighteenth century coffee trade. Unlike the STT, the STRO allows research into individual colonial products, because the products remain uncategorized; in

10_{Nina Ellinger Bang and Knud Korst (eds.), Tabeller over skibsfart og varetransport gennem Øresund}

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8 fact, several spelling variations of the same product are present in the STRO. The STRO therefore offers the opportunity to study the trade of specific colonial good in a manner that is uniquely rewarding and feasible. This is one of the first attempts to use this new tool to study the trade in commodities. It is rewarding because for no other area in the world is eighteenth century trade so well documented, as in the Baltic region, and feasible because the STRO is exceptionally user-friendly due to its digital nature, which allows for easy search and data analysis.

The colonial product that will be studied in this research will be coffee. The rise in trade of this commodity is well documented in the STRO. Starting first in small quantities in the 1720s, the trade in coffee had gained great importance by the end of the century. Also, no other research has been published on the eighteenth century Baltic coffee trade. Studying the trade of coffee might give us a greater insight into how the Baltic region integrated into the emerging European world economy. This research will tell us which cities imported coffee, how much they imported, and when they imported it, thus shedding light on the diffusion of coffee consumption in this region. Moreover, this can shed a light on the competition of the various possible suppliers and carriers of colonial commodities: The Dutch Republic, Great Britain, France, and the various Baltic countries. When coffee was introduced to the Baltic region in the eighteenth century, European states had mercantilist policies in place to stimulate their economies and increase their revenues from taxation. Studying Baltic coffee trade will give us insight into the effects of mercantilist policy on this particular trade.

The findings about the structure of the Baltic coffee trade are related to theory about the functioning of the European port system in the early modern period and the importance of staple markets or entrepôts. Inspired by network theory from economical geography, Clé Lesger has argued against that idea that Amsterdam was the central staple market in early modern European trade and proposes there were multiple gateways operating in dynamic hierarchies, varying according to the specific goods trade. Amsterdam only fulfilled a central mediating role when demand in importing countries was too small to maintain direct trade relations with the production countries, and is was therefore was cost efficient to trade trough Amsterdam. Lesger’s example for such a trade is the trade of luxury goods to the Baltic region, as this market was small due to the limited purchasing power of the small elites. Amsterdam did have a prominent position in European trade thanks to the great availability of information in the city, which gave its merchants a cutting-edge in trade. This trade did not necessarily involve storage in Amsterdam’s warehouses.11_{Along this line, Jan Willem Veluwenkamp argues that eighteenth} century improvements in the postal system damaged Amsterdam’s position as an ‘information

11_{Clé Lesger, Handel in Amsterdam ten tijde van de Opstand. Kooplieden, commerciële expansie en}

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9 hub’ as it gave other cities better access to information, thus damaging the city’s position in international trade.12_{This study aims to compare the observations about the structure of the} Baltic coffee trade to these general theoretical ideas.

This study will analyze coffee trade in the Baltic Sea area in the eighteenth century. The leading research question is: how did the Baltic coffee trade develop in the eighteenth century? In this thesis ‘development’ will be defined as e.g. changes in size, the origin, destination, and mediators of the coffee trade, therefore I will analyze these main four areas of the coffee trade. In Chapter 1 the historiography relevant to the eighteenth century Baltic coffee trade is reviewed. The method in which the data on the coffee trade was extracted from STRO and was converted into statistical data is discussed in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3 the eighteenth century Baltic coffee trade is analyzed on the basis of data that resulted from thus method. In the description of the flow of coffee into the Baltic region several characteristics will be specified: volume, origin, destination and who carried it. Subsequently, an attempt will be made to explain the empirical findings. Possible explanations on the demand and supply side will be explored. Furthermore, the findings will be compared to historiography discussed in Chapter 1 in order to see what this study adds to historiography.

12_{Jan Willem Veluwenkamp, ‘International Business Communication Patterns in the Dutch Commercial} System, 1500-1800’, in: H. Cools, M. Keblusek & B. Noldus (eds.), Your Humble Servant. Agents in Early

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Chapter 1: The historiography on eighteenth century coffee trade

In this chapter the literature relevant to the issue of the Baltic eighteenth century coffee trade is discussed. As literature specifically devoted to coffee trading in the region is nonexistent this chapter addresses studies that deal with trading of colonial goods in general, the consumption of colonial goods, the production of colonial goods, and more general economic history. As during the eighteenth century the Baltic region largely depended on Western Europe for its supply of colonial wares – France, the Dutch Republic, England, and Hamburg re-exported the larger share of the colonial wares that reached the Baltic markets – the production and trade in these

countries is discussed prior to addressing the Baltic region specifically. The trade of coffee is thus discussed in the context of the trade between the Western Europe and the Baltic in general, although the focus is on coffee and colonial goods trade. The aim of these discussions is twofold. Firstly, to position eighteenth century coffee trade in its historical context. Secondly, to give an overview of the current state of the historiography on eighteenth century European/Baltic colonial goods trade, that will be compared in the Chapter 3 to the findings about the Baltic coffee trade.

The chapter is structured as follows. First, the literature on the role of the Dutch Republic in the production and trade of coffee and Baltic trade in general are discussed. Subsequently, the same is done for France and Great Britain. After having discussed the various European colonial powers, the contested importance of Hamburg as supplier of colonial wares to the Baltic region is expounded upon. Then, the available literature on the import of colonial wares to the Baltic is presented, and finally, an overview is given of the consumption of these goods in eighteenth century Europe.

1.1 The production and trade of coffee by the European colonial powers 1.1.1 The Dutch Republic

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12 1651. These laws aimed to end the dependency of English merchants on Dutch shipping and the Dutch staple market.13_{France, Prussia, and Sweden, amongst others, also pursued mercantilist} policies to stimulate their trade at the expense of the Dutch.14

In this new political-economic environment Dutch foreign trade changed. The Dutch economy had to adapt to the new circumstances. The old role of ‘Europe’s middleman’ was no longer feasible. Due to competition the important bulk trades on traditional routes declined, most notably the trade of Baltic grain through Amsterdam. On the other hand, trade in other products and with other destinations increased. Particularly, the re-export of colonial wares to the German hinterland increased in the eighteenth century.15_{The growth of the trade in colonial} products thus compensated for the losses suffered in other sectors. Consequently, the Dutch economy did not decline in the eighteenth century, but rather it changed its focus: from transit trade of European products and the export of domestic produce to the transit trade of colonial wares. Nevertheless, the growth of colonial goods trade could not prevent the Dutch Republic from being caught up by the faster growing economies of Great Britain and France.16

The shift to the transit trade of colonial wares had negative consequences for Dutch-Baltic trade, as this was primarily based on bulk trade. During ‘the Golden Age’ the Dutch-Baltic was the most important market for the Dutch trading system and this importance was based on the trade in bulk goods such as grain, fish, salt, and wool. In the eighteenth century the Republic lost its grip on these trades and the trade volumes between the Baltic and the Dutch Republic decreased. On the other hand, the Dutch re-export of colonial wares to the Baltic increased: especially the trade in spices and sugar. This increase however did not prevent the Dutch Republic’s market share of colonial goods from decreasing: in 1720 the Republic supplied two-thirds of all colonial wares to the Baltic and in 1770 this had declined to just one quarter.17

Coffee was one of the colonial products the Dutch Republic exported in Europe. In fact, the Dutch were the first Europeans to grow coffee. At the end of the seventeenth century Dutch merchants managed to smuggle a few coffee plants out of Yemen. Attempts were made to cultivate these plants on different locations and in 1707 the experiment succeeded in West-Java. Here, in the mountainous area called Preanger, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) successfully introduced the coffee plant. Stimulated by high coffee prices, the cultivation of coffee expanded

13 _David_{Ormrod, The rise of commercial empires: England and the Netherlands in the age of mercantilism,}

1650-1770 (Cambridge: University Press, 2003) 41.

14_{Jonathan I. Israel, Dutch primacy in world trade 1585-1740 (Oxford 1989) 383-386.}

15_{Jan de Vries and Ad van der Woude, The First Modern Economy. Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the}

Dutch Economy, 1500–1815 (Cambridge 1997) 681.

16_{Jan de Vries and Ad van der Woude, Nederland 1500-1815. De eerste ronde van moderne economische}

groei (Amsterdam, 1995) 582.

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13 quickly. The VOC introduced a system in which the producers of coffee were forced to supply all of their coffee to the VOC. The production of coffee grew so quickly that soon the supply of Java coffee by the VOC was larger than the supply of the traditional center of the coffee trade, Mocha. The production in Java increased so fast that some feared of overproduction. The VOC responded in 1730 by lowering the purchase price, installing a production ceiling, and fining

overproduction. In 1760 this policy was abolished and producers were stimulated to supply as much as they could. The production increased from 4 million pounds in the middle of the eighteenth century to 8-9 million pounds in the last decade of the eighteenth century.18

In the 1720s coffee cultivation was also successfully introduced in Suriname, and just as on Java, production expanded quickly. By 1750, the plantations of the Dutch South-American colony produced 6 million pounds of coffee annually. In the final quarter of the century the production in Suriname increased even further to over 10 million pounds per year, though,like in the other West-Indian colonies, sugar cultivation was more important: 18-20 million pounds being produced annually. The entire produce was sent to the Republic.19

Despite increased production, the Dutch colonies could not supply enough coffee to meet demand for coffee on the Amsterdam market, and therefore additional supplies were imported from France. De Vries and van der Woude calculate that between 1775 and 1778 36 million pounds of coffee was imported to the Republic, with 21 million from the plantations in Suriname, 5 million shipped in from the East Indies by the VOC, and 7 million from France.20 Colonial products thus became more and more important over the course of the eighteenth century for French-Dutch trade. In 1700 sugar, coffee, tobacco, indigo, and rice were hardly exported from France to the Dutch Republic, but in 1750 these products constituted half of the French export to the Republic, and by 1789 80%. This trade was controlled by Dutch merchant families in Nantes, La Rochelle and Bordeaux, who had often lived in these cities for a long time.21

In short, in the eighteenth century the extraordinary position of the Dutch Republic as Europe’s middle man came to an end. As a result of foreign competition backed by mercantilist states the Republic was forced to reorientate its trade. A shift was made from bulk trade with the Baltic to the export of colonial wares to Germany. As the Dutch played an important role in the diffusion of the cultivation and consumption of coffee, coffee was one of these products. Early in the eighteenth century coffee production was started on Java and in Surinam and production

18_{http://www.voc-kenniscentrum.nl/prod-koffie.html (Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en} Volkenkunde), accessed on 28/11/2013, 10.58.

19_{De Vries and van der Woude, Nederland 1500-1815, 546.} 20_{Ibidem, 546-548.}

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14 expanded quickly. Nonetheless, the demand for coffee could not be met by colonial production and additional coffee was imported from France.

1.1.2 France

In the eighteenth century French foreign trade transformed. France built a new commercial empire based on the re-export of colonial wares from the West-Indies to Europe and freed itself from the Dutch commercial domination. Especially during the period 1735-1755 French trade expanded spectacularly. This growth was mainly based on expansion of the trade with the French Antilles.22_{The French West-Indies became the most important production area for sugar} and coffee in the eighteenth century. Especially in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (on the island of Santo Domingo) the production of these goods increased enormously, to the extent that in the 1780s more than half of the world production of coffee was located here.23

Initially the trade of these colonies was dominated by Dutch, to the disgust of the French minister of finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert. He estimated that of the 150 ships that were involved in the trade with the French West-Indies only three were French owned, the others were mostly owned by Dutch. To change this situation the colonies the French crown took more control of the colonies and adopted policies aimed at banning foreigners from French colonial trade. In 1671 the basis was laid for French colonial mercantilism, when the ‘exclusive system’ (L’Exclusif) was instituted. From now on foreign ships were no longer allowed in French colonial ports and French exports to the colonies were exempt from duties. This policy greatly stimulated French shipping and shipbuilding, together with the growth of West-Indian trade, trade wars, trade in the Mediterranean, and the expansion of East-Indian trade.24

France re-exported the majority of the colonial goods that it imported as the French consumption did not match its colonial production. Although France was a populous country and the consumption of colonial wares was becoming fashionable in French cities, the domestic market was relatively small due to low incomes and high inland transport costs. The main market for French colonial wares was Northern Europe. This aspect of French foreign trade was

22_{Paul Butel, ‘France, the Antilles, and Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Renewals of} foreign trade’, in: James D. Tracy (ed.), The rise of merchant empires. Long-distance trade in the early

modern world 1350-1750 (Cambridge, 1990) 153- 173, 154.

23_{Silvia Marzagalli, ‘The French Atlantic and the Dutch, late seventeeth-late eighteenth century’, in:}_G. Oostindie and J. Roitman (eds.), Dutch Atlantic Connections, 1680-1800; Linking empires, bridging borders (Leiden, 2014) 103-118, 109.

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15 excluded from the mercantilist system and was therefore handled by foreigners.25_{There existed} a division of labor: the traders of Bordeaux carried out the colonial trade and let foreigners handle the European trade. The Dutch and German merchant colonies in Bordeaux played an important role in this task division.26_{The Dutch played an important role in this trade as the} distribution of colonial wares to Northern Europe took place via old networks. Flemish and Dutch merchants and bankers became heavily involved in French foreign trade and many of them settled in the involved French Atlantic ports to facilitate salt, wine, and other trades.27 Compared to the Dutch merchants, the Germans who settled in the French ports in this period were newcomers. Through these channels, or networks, colonial products from the French West-Indies reached Northern Europe, thus Northern Europeans continued to play an considerable role in France’s most important foreign trade.28

Over the course of eighteenth century, the Dutch Republic became a less important destination for the re-export of colonial wares, although as I remarked earlier, this trade expanded. The market for French colonial re-exports shifted from Amsterdam to Northern German cities, particularly Hamburg. The declining importance of the Dutch for French exports is also reflected by the decreasing share of Bordeaux’s tonnage – France’s most prominent port for colonial goods – that was shipped by Dutch vessels. In 1715, Dutch ships handled 65%of the foreign tonnage in Bordeaux, in 1773 29% and only 18% in 1787.29_{As the volume of Bordeaux’s} trade and the foreign tonnage grew over the century this figures indicate that Dutch shipping became relatively less prominent for French export. The trade of other Northern Europeans with Bordeaux grew faster.

In the second half of the eighteenth century the ‘Hanseatic cities’ and Prussia roughly took in more than one-third of Bordeaux’s exports, and just before the Seven Years War (1753-1760) more than 40%, making this the most important market for Bordeaux. Between 1780-1791 on average 147 ships with a total tonnage of 32,323 tons left Bordeaux for the Hanseatic cities. In comparison, the Dutch Republic annually imported 23,035 tons with 127 ships on average in this period. The most important ports among the Hanseatic cities were Hamburg and Bremen, the role of the Hanseatic ports on the Baltic – Danzig and Lübeck – being in decline. In 1773 55 ships departed from Bordeaux for Danzig and Lübeck, in 1789 only 22. Stettin on the other hand, received more ships from Bordeaux, because unlike Danzig and Lübeck, which were

25_{Ibidem, 109.}

26_{Paul Butel, ‘Les négociants allemands de Bordeaux’, in: Jürgen Schneider (ed.), Wirtschaftskräfte und}

Wirtschaftswege. II., Wirtschaftskräfte in der europäischen Expansion (Stuttgart, 1978) 589-614, 593.

27_{Marzagalli, ‘the French Atlantic and the Dutch’, 106-107.} 28_{Ibidem, 108.}

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16 more involved in wine and grain trade, it became involved in the distribution of colonial wares.30 In contrast to the development of the Bordeaux-Danzig/Lübeck traffic, the expansion of

Bordeaux’s trade with Hamburg and Bremen was remarkable. At the beginning of the eighteenth century Hamburg was only a secondary market for Bordeaux: in 1715 only 23 out 514

departures from Bordeaux were destined for Hamburg, and 271 for the Dutch Republic. By the middle of century the situation had changed somewhat. In 1745, 48 sailed from Bordeaux to Hamburg, 14 to Bremen, 92 to Amsterdam, and 60 to Rotterdam. In 1790, the number of ships that sailed from Bordeaux to Hamburg increased to 113 ships, amounting to 37% of all ships departing from Bordeaux.31_{Hamburg was especially important destination for coffee export: in} 1783 it imported 12.7 million pounds of coffee, 46% of Bordeaux’s total coffee export. Bremen ranked number two, importing 5 million pounds. These figures lead Paul Butel to state that: ‘les Hanséates ont aquis un veritable monopole des cafés bordelaise dans le dernier tiers du XVIIIe siècle’.32

French trade with Northern Europe was organized through commission trade. For this system to work trust was indispensable. Therefore merchants preferred to trade with – and provide credit to – parties known to them. As confidence was vital for trade, migration and family ties were important in early modern trade. For example, French Huguenots settled in Hamburg, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Stockholm and conducted trade with their relations in France.33_{Contacts abroad were also important because they gave access to information}

necessary to profit from fluctuation in commodity prices, outpace competitors, and to anticipate to accidents such as bankruptcies of business houses, government bonds or wars.34

The growth of the French-German trade was thus reflected in the number of Germans residing in Bordeaux. At the end of the reign of Louis XIV a German merchant colony existed in Bordeaux, and equaled the size of its Dutch equivalent: there were both 16 merchants from the Dutch Republic and Germany.35_{As a result of growing the trade between Bordeaux and}

Northern Europe, the immigration of German merchants to Bordeaux increased in the second half of the 18th_{century: in 1777, 52 of the 78 commissionaires who were found in Bordeaux’s tax} records were German. Also, the German merchants petitioned for protestant cemetery in 1768,

30_{Butel, Les négociants bordelais, 49.} 31_{Ibidem, 49-50.}

32_{Ibidem,, 50.}

33_{Pourchasse Pierrick, ‘Les huguenots et l'élite négociante scandinave au XVIIIe siècle’, Histoire, économie}

& société, no. 1 (2010) 81-92.

34_{Pourchasse, ‘Les Huguenots’, 85.}

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17 suggesting that their numbers had increased.36_{In contrast, the Dutch merchant colony in this} city withered in this period.37

The slave revolt in Santo Domingo in 1791 and the War of the First Coalition (1792– 1797) ended the best era of the French West Indian trade, although many French merchants were already suffering from foreign competition before this time. During the war France was cut-off from its West Indian colonies. Santo Domingo however kept exporting, at a lower level, via British and American ports. As a result of the slave revolt sugar production plummeted, instead ‘coffee production, in particular, did remain, quite as high as it depended less on the huge working parties of slaves which had been broken up by the revolt’.38

In the long run, the Haitian Revolution however had large consequences for the trade patterns in the Western Hemisphere. Before the revolution, Haiti had been the world’s largest producer of sugar, coffee, indigo, and an important producer of tobacco. As a result of the revolution production fell and the prices of these products sharply increased. It also displaced a large number of planters and merchants from Haiti to other parts of the Americas suitable for the production of colonial wares, such as Cuba, Porto Rico, Louisiana, and Brazil.39_{. The}

decreased production of sugar and coffee as a result of the revolution was thus compensated by production in other areas, stimulating the growth of the plantation economy outside Haiti and slave trade. Ironically, the Haitian Revolution provided opportunities for planters elsewhere.40

The eighteenth century thus saw ‘the boom and bust’ of the French West Indies trade and the French dominance of the European colonial goods market. In a period of one hundred years France built a commercial empire based on the production and trade of colonial wares in the French West Indies and lost it again. High prices stimulated the production of sugar, coffee, and other products, especially in the colony of St. Domingue. Only a small share of the colonial produce that arrived in Bordeaux from the Caribbean was destined for the French market, the majority was re-exported to Northern Europe. Initially, this trade was controlled by the Dutch, but in the course of the century the Hanseatic cities took over this trade. Especially the export of French colonial wares to Hamburg increased, making the city the most important destination for these exports in the second half of the century. In relation to the expanding trade, the number of German merchants in Bordeaux increased, outnumbering the number of Dutch merchants in the

36_{Ibidem, 597.}

37_{Veluwenkamp, ‘International business communication patterns’, 131.}

38_{Paul Butel, ‘Traditions and changes in French Atlantic trade between 1780 and 1830’, Renaissance and}

Modern studies 30 (1986) 124-145, 136.

39_{Steven Topic, ‘An Explosion of Violence. How the Haitian Revolution Rearranged the trade patterns of} the Western Hemisphere’, in: Lucia Coppolaro and Francine McKenzie (eds.), A Global History of Trade

and Conflict Since 1500 (New York, 2013) 62-86, 64.

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18 city by the second half of the century. The outbreak of the Haitian Revolution brought and the First Revolutionary War brought an end to this success. The production of colonial wares dropped, and what production remained was exported through American and British ports.

1.1.3 Great Britain

In the eighteenth century England, from 1707 Great Britain, economically reoriented from trade with the European continent to trade with its overseas possessions. Although the traditional trade in woolen textiles remained the most valuable export commodity, in the second half of the seventeenth century England’s foreign trade expanded due to the re-export of colonial wares – tobacco, sugar, and calico – to the continent. In the period 1690-1720, however, this growth slowed down because English colonial sugar exports were driven off the continental European market by French West Indian sugar. Some new products suitable for re-export were found: coffee, tea, and rice, but these did not generate a boost in foreign trade similar to the

seventeenth century surge based on the export of tobacco and sugar.41 From the 1730s the export of manufactories and textiles to America provided the foundation for some slow growth of the export.42_{Gradually, ‘Europe’ became less reliant on British produce whilst the colonies} became more dependent on the motherland.43_{The growth of English foreign trade in the second} half of the eighteenth century was related to the first steps in the industrialization process of England. Raw materials were imported – for example cotton from America – and manufactories were exported. The re-export of colonial wares thus became less important. The re-export of coffee however remained an important export product as a result of the particular history of coffee in England.44

At the start of the eighteenth century England imported its coffee from Yemen, via the Levant. The English Levant company controlled this trade and nearly all coffee was consumed in England. Coffee was a popular drink in England. London for example counted no less than a thousand coffee houses. After 1710, when political instability in Egypt frustrated the supply of coffee to the port of the Levant, the English East India Company (EIC) set up a new route around Cape Horn directly to Mocha, where it established a factory.45_{In 1728 the English started to} cultivate their own coffee on Jamaica, just as the Dutch and the French were doing in other parts

41_{Brian Murphy, A history of the British economy, 1086-1970 (London, 1973) 92.}

42_{Ralph Davis, The rise of the English shipping industry in the 17th and 18th centuries (London, 1962)} 28-29.

43_{Murphy, British economy, 407} 44_{Ibidem, 480-486.}

45_{S.D Smith, ‘Accounting for Taste: British Coffee Consumption in Historical Perspective’, The Journal of}

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19 of the world, and after nine years, in 1737, exported the first Jamaican coffee. Jamaican coffee production however was not a great success straightaway and therefore did not immediately replace Yemini coffee imports. Despite these developments, the size of the English coffee trade remained stable, or compared to the general trend, perhaps you should say stagnant.

This stagnation was related to the English loss of taste for coffee. During the War of Jenkin’s Ear (1739-1745) the supply of coffee to England was interrupted and in 1745 the duties on tea were reduced. The relative low price of tea prevented the recovery of English coffee consumption to pre-war levels. S.D. Smith therefore marks the war as the turning point in the history of British coffee consumption. During the rest of the eighteenth century tea consumption increased spectacularly in England, whilst coffee consumption stagnated.46_{England had become} a nation of tea-drinkers, a fact that will still be confirmed today by any continental visitor who made the error of ordering coffee in England.

Graph 1: English coffee imports and exports in cwt., 1750-1800. Source: Elizabeth B. Schumpeter, English Overseas Trade Statistics, 1697-1808 (Oxford, 1960) 60-62.

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20 The British coffee trade however did not decline in the second half of the eighteenth century. On the contrary, Schumpeter’s figures on British coffee trade (Graph 1) indicate the import of coffee grew from 10,699 cwt. (1,198,288 pounds) in 1750 to 64,454 cwt. (7,218,848 pounds) in 1775, to 575,197 cwt. (64,422,064 pounds) in 1800.47_{The coffee trade grew}

particularly in the 1790s. According to Brian Murphy, this growth was the result of the ‘closure’ of the port of Amsterdam in course of the Napoleonic Wars.48_{Schumpeter’s figures on the export} of coffee keep an even pace with these figures. They suggest that England hardly retained any of its coffee import. In British trade, coffee was solely a transit good.

Some of the British coffee export was destined for the Baltic. British trade through the Sound expanded significantly during the eighteenth century. In the second half of the

seventeenth century on average only 181 ships for England and Scotland entered the Baltic, in the first half of the eighteenth century this figure was 310, and in the second half of the

eighteenth century this figure increased to 742.49_{On the export side, this growth was built on} increasing exports of industrial goods and colonial wares. Export to the eastern Baltic especially grew as English cloth, lead, tobacco, and later coal, were in high demand in this region.50

The intensified British trade relations with the Baltic were mainly centered on the import of raw materials: iron, naval stores, and flax. As a result of the industrialization and the expansion of the shipping – and consequently the shipbuilding industry – the demand for these products surged. In fact, British imports from the Baltic tripled between 1740 and 1785, despite the growing supply of naval stores from America. English exports to the Baltic did not match this growth, and the Baltic trade was therefore a deficit trade for England.51_{The export of coffee to} the Baltic was a means to compensate this deficit, to some extent at least.

In conclusion, coffee became an export commodity for Great Britain in the eighteenth century. Initially, coffee was imported from Yemen to meet the demand of the home market. As a result of the temporary suspension of the supply of coffee during the War of Jenkin’s Ear, and relatively high duties on coffee, the British consumer switched to tea. British coffee imports increased nonetheless, due to increased coffee production in Jamaica, but was exclusively destined for re-export to the European mainland. Coffee was thus used to pay for the growing

47_{The figures were converted to pounds and kilograms assuming that 1 cwt. = 112 lb. Elizabeth B.} Schumpeter, English Overseas Trade Statistics, 1697-1808 (Oxford, 1960) 60-62.

48_{Brian Murphy, British Economy, 484.}

49_{J.A. Faber, ‘Structural Changes in the European Economy during the Eighteenth Century as Reflected in} the Baltic Trade’, in: W.G. Heeres a.o. (eds.), From Dunkirk to Danzig. Shipping and Trade in the North Sea

and the Baltic 1350-1850 (Hilversum, 1988) 83-94, 90.

50_{Davis, English shipping industry, 219.}

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21 import of raw materials from the Baltic. British coffee exports peaked during the 1790s, as a result of the Revolutionary Wars, which frustrated trade through Amsterdam.

1.2 Hamburg

Despite not being a part of any mercantilist system, Hamburg managed to become an important city in the trade of colonial goods in Europe in the eighteenth century. Located on the mouth of the Elbe River, Hamburg is natural gateway to Germany and Central Europe and is therefore an important center of trade since medieval times (see: map 1 in appendix). During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the city was part of the trade area of Amsterdam. The city functioned as the link between the Elbe estuary and the Dutch trading system, and to a lesser extent the English trading system. In the second half of the seventeenth century and the eighteenth century this situation changed. Making use of its political neutrality, free port, and strategic position Hamburg managed to attract the traffic of ships that was generated by the aforementioned expansion of the colonial goods trade and the emerging textile industry in Silesia. The port city emancipated itself from the Amsterdam staple market and expanded its trade with Western and Southern Europe, particularly with France, which and after 1750, became Hamburg’s most important trading partner.52

In his classic article Pierre Jeannin describes the intensive trade links between Hamburg and France by using French consular records on the traffic of ships. Jeannin sums up that in the years 1768, 1777, and 1787 Hamburg took in 78% to 82% of the French exports to the

Hanseatic cities. Bremen handled 15-18% and Lübeck only 2-3%. The cities developed into a successful competitor for the Dutch, and around the middle of the century the French export of colonial wares to the Hanseatic cities outsized the export to the Dutch Republic. In 1753, Hamburg imported more sugar, coffee, and indigo from Bordeaux than Amsterdam and

Rotterdam together. Later, the position of the Dutch Republic somewhat recovered. In 1783, the Hanseatic cities imported two thirds of Bordeaux’s coffee export, but only 28% of its sugar, less the Dutch Republic.53

There is agreement upon the fact that Hamburg became an important destination for colonial wares, but whether the city functioned as a staple market of colonial wares for the Baltic is contested. Three different positions can be discerned. Firstly, Hamburg was a staple market

52_{Micheal North, ‘Hamburg. The ‘continent’s most English city’, in: From the North Sea to the Baltic. Essays}

in commercial, monetary, and agrarian history, 1500-1800 (Aldershot, 1996) 1-13, 6-8.

53_{Pierre Jeannin, ‘Die Hänsestädte im europäischen Handel des 18. Jahrhunderts’, Hansische}

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22 for colonial wares for the Baltic region. Secondly, Hamburg exported colonial wares to the Baltic region overland, and was a staple market for colonial wares for the Baltic region. Thirdly, Hamburg did not export colonial wares on a large scale to the Baltic; instead it was hinterland was the Elbe estuary. The three positions are illustrated here.

The idea that Hamburg was a staple market for the Baltic is mainly based on the expanding sugar industry in Hamburg. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century a rising number of sugar refineries processed raw sugar that was imported from France. Hermann Kellenblenz believed that this sugar ‘dominated the Scandinavian and Baltic market’.54_Curiously, Kellenblenz does not mention Germany as potential market for the Hamburg sugar. Johansen comes to similar conclusions. He states that the most important market for refined sugar from Amsterdam and Hamburg was the Baltic, and that their hinterlands came in second place. He however makes a differentiation: despite the fact that Amsterdam and Hamburg sent the larger share of their refined sugar to the Baltic, France was the most important supplier of sugar, because of the large volumes of raw sugar that the country exported to the Baltic.55_{On the basis} of the STT Unger describes Hamburg as a Baltic staple market for colonial wares, but he ascribes more importance to France, Amsterdam, and England as suppliers of colonial wares to the Baltic.56

Tamaki and Pourchasse also believe that the Hamburg was entrepôt for the transit of French colonial wares to the Baltic, but argue that the export of these wares took place over land. Because colonial wares were low-weight and high value it was more profitable to transport these products overland to Lübeck than around Jutland through the Sound. Pourchasse cites a French report on the Hanseatic cities from 1777 claiming that Hamburg exported to the Baltic overland to Lübeck because it was cheaper as freight and insurance rates were high for Sound traffic, moreover, ships from Hamburg paid twice as much toll as ships flying other flags. The problem is that this overland traffic was not controlled by customs and therefore not

registered.57_{It is important to note that Tamaki claims that the increased export of colonial}

54_{Hermann Kellenblenz, ‘The organization of industrial production’, in: et al (eds.) The Cambridge}

Economic History of Europe, Vol. 5: The Economic Organization of Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1977)

462-548, 541.

55_{Hans Chr. Johansen, ‘How to Pay for Baltic Products’ in: W. Ficher, R.M. McInnis, and J. Schneider, The}

Emergence of a World Economy. Papers of the IX. international congress of economic history, Part I

(Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1987) 123-142, 129-132.

56_{W.S. Unger, ‘Trade Through the Sound in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, The Economic}

History Review, New Series, Vol. 12, No. 2 (1959) 206-221, 212.

57_{Toshiaki Tamaki, ‘Hamburg as a gateway’ in: Leos Müller, Philipp Robinson Rössner, Toshiaki Tamaki} (eds.), The Rise of the Atlantic Economy and the North Sea/Baltic Trades, 1500-1800. Proceedings of the

XVth World Economic History Congress (Utrecht, Netherlands 2009) (Stuttgart : Steiner, 2011). Pierre

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1500-23 wares to the Baltic from Hamburg from the 1750s onwards did take place oversea because the overland route could not handle the increased demand.58

In the previously referred to article, Jeannin argues that Hamburg, and Bremen, exported their colonial wares to inland Germany, not to the Baltic. He refers to a French consul who reported in 1750 that the French goods that arrived in Hamburg were sent further to Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland, and Russia. Bordeaux had extensive direct links to the Baltic and Scandinavian markets, and therefore Hamburg, Bremen, and Amsterdam were not needed as intermediaries. Jeannin stresses that the Baltic and Nordic markets were relatively small, and therefore were not of great importance for the French export. Somewhat inconsistently, Jeannin’s source is a consular report that indicates that in 1783 as much as 22% of the French sugar export was directly shipped to ‘the North’, and 5% of the coffee export, hardly negligible figures.59

In short, during the eighteenth century, Hamburg became the most important destination for the export of French colonial goods, replacing the Dutch Republic. It remains contested whether Hamburg re-exported these products to the Baltic or Germany, and in what manner it was transported. Some argue that sugar and coffee from Hamburg dominated the Baltic market. Tamaki and Pourchasse also hold this position, but believe that the goods were transported to Lübeck overland, and from there distributed further. Others argue that

Hamburg’s import was shipped to inland Germany via the Elbe River, and that the Baltic market was of minor importance.

1.3 The Baltic region

As mentioned before, the Baltic region was mainly known for its export of raw materials to the West. Naturally, however, the Baltic also imported goods from Western Europe, but this aspect of Baltic trade has received less scholarly attention. The primary products that the Baltic region imported were: salt, herring, wine, fabrics, skins, hides and colonial goods. The salt was mainly supplied by France and Portugal.60_{In the seventeenth century herring was the main Dutch} export product for the Baltic. In the eighteenth century however the export declined due the war damage to the Dutch herring fleet and emergence of the herring industry on the Swedish west coast. The wine that entered the Baltic was generally either French wine or Rhine wine exported

1800. Proceedings of the XVth World Economic History Congress (Utrecht, Netherlands 2009) (Stuttgart :

Steiner, 2011).

58_{Tamaki, ‘Hamburg’, 76.}

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24 through the Dutch Republic. Colonial wares were initially imported from the Dutch Republic and England, using Dutch and English ships. This situation changed, as the trade in the products grew from less than one million pounds per year in the seventeenth century to 10 million pounds per year in 1739, and even more in the second half of the eighteenth century. Colonial wares were shipped in from France onboard of Danish, Swedish, and German ships.61_{From the} 1720s Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia developed mercantilist policies aimed at

decreasing ‘third party interference’ in their trade and shipping.62

Especially the import of colonial goods experienced a rapid growth in the eighteenth century (see Table 1). Initially, the Baltic was marginal market for colonial goods. In the seventeenth century colonial products were a rare luxury product in the Baltic region. For example, Rönnbäck estimates that the Baltic only imported 1-2% of the world production of sugar in the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century this situation changed. The STT indicate that in the import of colonial wares –which particular wares is uncertain – multiplied by a factor of ten, thus increasing the share of the Baltic region to 4-8% of the world production.63

Year (yearly average)

Total supply (mill.

pounds) France Britain Netherlands Hamburg

Other areas 1700-1709 3.1 7% 21% 64% 1% 7% 1710-1719 4.2 4% 26% 67% 0% 3% 1720-1729 7.3 5% 23% 62% 5% 5% 1730-1739 8.8 8% 21% 61% 4% 6% 1740-1749 10.3 19% 21% 46% 8% 6% 1750-1759 12.7 30% 23% 31% 10% 6% 1760-1769 20.0 24% 32% 25% 12% 7% 1770-1779 32.5 43% 23% 16% 10% 6% 1780-1783 33.8 40% 17% 10% 5% 28%

Table 1: Colonial products entering the Baltic according to the STT. Source: Johansen, ‘How to pay for Baltic Products’, 129.

When you look at the figures of the STT (Table 1) about the Baltic import of colonial it becomes apparent that the growth of the import was mainly caused by increased French exports. As the volume of colonial goods that was shipped through the Sound grew, the share of

61_{Unger, ‘Trade Through the Sound in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, 207-212. Johansen,} ‘How to pay for Baltic Products’, 123-129.

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25 this volume that originated in France increased. In the half of the century the Dutch Republic was the main colonial goods supplier of the Baltic, afterwards France assumed this role. The export of British colonial goods steadily increased over the century, as the British share of the export was more or less stable just above 20% and the total volume increased. Furthermore, Hamburg became a significant supplier of colonial goods to the Baltic over the course of the century. In the period 1780-1783 the pattern changed: a quarter of the colonial wares were imported from a region other than France, the Dutch Republic, Great Britain, or Hamburg. This shift was perhaps related to the War of American Independence which disturbed normal traffic.

Rönnbäck’s study on the sugar trade gives an insight into pattern of trade in the Baltic for the period 1775-1794. His data indicates that three ports handled the larger share of the sugar that arrived in the Baltic: Copenhagen, Stettin, and St. Petersburg. Stockholm, Riga, Danzig, Königsberg, and Flensburg all imported smaller quantities. Stettin and St. Petersburg probably imported sugar for domestic consumption. Copenhagen’s imported its sugar from the Danish West Indies and re-exported a substantial share – roughly one-third – to other countries that border the Baltic Sea. This was related to the Danish ambition to make Copenhagen the Baltic staple market for colonial wares. To what extent Copenhagen could fulfill this role was however more dependent on the political situation than on Danish policy. Danish imports and re-exports soared when the major European powers were in conflict, such as during the American

Revolutionary Wars. In peacetime Denmark’s share of the Baltic sugar trade was significantly smaller.64

Johansen’s database sheds light on the Baltic import of separate colonial products in the period 1784-1795 (Table 2). It suggests that the sugar was the most important of colonial commodity. This certainly true if you compare the sugar, coffee, and tobacco trade in terms of weight. Based on weight roughly three times as much sugar passed the Sound as coffee; and maybe four or five times as much sugar as tobacco. If the sugar shipped by the Danish West Indian company would also be included in this comparison the difference would be even larger. However, if you take into account the value of goods the picture changes. Johansen calculates – using Posthumus’ Dutch prices – that for the French-Baltic trade balance the export of coffee was more valuable than sugar, or any other product as a matter of fact. In 1787 the French export of coffee to the Baltic accounted for 4.5 million guilders of the 13.3 million in total. The table also reflects the consequences of the slave uprising in St. Domingue in 1791. The volumes of sugar and coffee in the years 1793, 1794, and 1795 were significantly lower. French colonial trade had stopped after the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1791, according to Johansen, but was

64_{Klas Rönnbäck, Commerce and colonization. Studies of Early Modern Merchant Capitalism in the Atlantic}

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26 replaced by British exports and direct Danish trade. Before 1781 the Danish West India

Company had started to re-export coffee within the Baltic. The success of this trade worried the French, especially the fact that the Danes managed to sell their coffee at lower prices than the French.65_{Finally, the table suggests that the tobacco trade was affected less by the revolt.} Logically, as St. Domingue was not a major supplier of tobacco.

Year Sugar (1000 pounds) Coffee (1000 pounds) Tobacco (1000 pounds)

1784 22991 5607 2244 1785 18242 9922 1305 1786 20357 6675 3419 1787 18512 9058 4771 1788 16507 6204 4909 1789 21563 7394 3431 1790 19929 6843 2769 1791 17239 6678 4475 1792 16386 5203 3903 1793 2695 2420 2577 1794 8260 3148 2507 1795 6521 4672 3266

Table 2: Annual volumes of sugar, coffee, and tobacco entering the Baltic, 1784-1795. Source: Johansen, ‘How to pay for Baltic Products’, 130.

In conclusion, the Baltic region developed into a notable market for colonial wares in the eighteenth century. In the seventieth century, the Baltic took in 1-2% of the world production of sugar and by the end of the eighteenth century this figure had increased to 4-8%. The colonial products that were consumed in the Baltic were primary provided by France, which increased its exports to the Baltic in the second half of the century. Copenhagen, Stettin, and St. Petersburg handled the greater part of the colonial wares that arrived in the Baltic. Copenhagen’s trade flourished especially in wartime, when it re-exported colonial wares within the Baltic. Finally, Johansen’s calculations suggest that although sugar was the most important colonial good in term of weight, the Baltic import of coffee was more valuable.

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27 1.4 The consumption of coffee

After discussing the production and trade of colonial goods in the previous paragraphs, here an idea is given of the consumption of these wares in eighteenth century. At this time the

consumption of colonial goods was centered in northwestern Europe. As one went south and east the consumption levels dropped. The British and Dutch consumed the most colonial goods per capita. In the 1780s the British consumed on average 9 kg of sugar, 0.7 kg of tea, 0.05 kg of coffee, and 0.7 kg of tobacco. The Dutch consumed less sugar (4-5 kg), slightly less tea (0.5 kg), much more coffee (2.8 kg), and more tobacco (2-3 kg). De Vries calculates that the British and Dutch consumption pattern of colonial wares was 2-4 times as high as the European average. Importantly, in Britain and the Netherlands consumption had spread from the city to the

countryside and from the elite to the working class. In France and Austria on the other hand, the consumption of colonial wares was limited to cities.66

A case study on the Dutch city of Maastricht by J.C.G.M. Jansen confirms this idea.67_In 1735 the inhabitants of Maastricht drank 2-3 cups of coffee or tea a day on average. Of the two, tea was more popular because the excise on this product was half as high as on coffee.

Interestingly, he observes that in the next 30 years coffee consumption in Maastricht hardly increased. The Maastricht coffee market seemed to have been saturated. The trade of coffee in Maastricht however still grew as the surrounding countryside picked up the habit of drinking coffee in the middle of the eighteenth century, a generation later than the city. Jansen compares his data with studies on coffee and tea consumption in Germany and the Alsace and concludes that the diffusion of coffee consumption differed regionally. Whereas in the Meuse valley area and in the German Magdenburger Börde (roughly: the area around the city Magdenburg) area coffee consumption was widespread mid-eighteenth century, in Alsace and in Prussia people had hardly started to drink coffee.68

In the second half of the eighteenth century coffee consumption thus became popular among wider classes in certain parts of Germany. Although the first shipment of coffee arrived in Hamburg as early as 1670, the product retained its exclusivity for a century due to limited supply and purchasing power. As greater supply and more efficient trade routes caused the price of coffee to drop coffee consumption became normal in the German middleclass, also in the

66_{Jan de Vries, Industrious revolution, 160-164.}

67_{J.C.G.M. Jansen, ‘Wilt U koffie of thee? Consumentengedrag in Maastricht in de achttiende eeuw’,}

NEHA-jaarboek voor economische, bedrijfs- en techniekgeschiedenis, Vol. 60 (Amsterdam: Vereniging Het

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28 countryside.69_{Research on the basis of the import declarations of the port of Hamburg even} suggests that of all Europeans Germans consumed most coffee: 0.7-0.75 kg annually per capita in 1790.70

Despite the earlier mentioned ten-fold increase of the import of colonial wares, the Baltic region remained an area of average colonial goods consumption in the eighteenth century. Based on the data compiled by Johansen, de Vries estimates that the Baltic region consumed colonial goods at the European average in the 1780s, that is 1 kg of sugar, 0.36 kg of coffee, and 0.16-0.47 kg of tobacco per capita. This estimation is based on the assumption that the Baltic market existed of 10 million consumers. The potential market of the Baltic Sea numbered in the tens of millions, but de Vries believes that colonial wares did not penetrate deeply into Eastern

Europe.71

In summary, the Baltic region consumed colonial wares, and coffee, at the average European level. The consumption of colonial goods in general was highest is northwestern Europe. Most coffee was consumed in the Dutch Republic and in Germany, where consumption spread rapidly in the second half of the century. Although a similar growth took place in the Baltic region at this time, consumption remained at a relatively low level compared to the regions of high consumption.

69_{Ernst Schubert, ´Daily life, Consumption, and Material culture´, in: Sheilagh C. Ogilvie and Robert W.} Scribner (eds.), Germany. A new Social and Economic History, Vol. II (London: Arnold, 1996-2003) 350-376, 365. Jürgen Schneider, The Effects on European Markets of Imports of Overseas Agriculture: The

production, Trade and Consumption of Coffee (15th_{to late 18}th_{century) in: José Casa Pardo (ed.),}

Economic Effects of the European Expansion (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992), 283-306, 303.

70_{Uwe Pfister, Great divergence, consumer revolution and the reorganization of textile markets: Evidence}

from Hamburg’s import trade, eighteen century (Munster, 2012, first draft) 46.

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29

Chapter 2: Methodology. Using the Sound Toll Registers to study Baltic coffee

trade

Before the data of the STRO on the Baltic coffee trade can be presented and analyzed, it is

appropriate to give account of the origin of the data, the manner in which the data was gathered, and to subject the data to source criticism. Firstly, the STR and the STRO are introduced, and their possibilities and problems in general are discussed. Secondly, the method in which the data on eighteenth century coffee trade was prepared for statistical analysis is described. Finally, the critique of Klas Rönnbäck on the STRO’s data on colonial goods is discussed, and the reliability the data on coffee trade is specifically questioned.

2.1 An introduction to the Sound Toll Registers Online

The Sound Toll, or Sound Dues, was levied by the Danish king from approximately 1429 to 1858 on ships passing the Sound (Danish: Øresund), the strait between Danish Zealand and (today) Swedish Scania. The Sound is one of the three straits – the other two are the shallower Great Belt (Danish: Storebælt) and the Little Belt (Danish: Lillebælt) that connect the Baltic Sea to the Kattegat, and thus eventually the North Sea. Because of its strategic position the Sound was and is one of the busiest trade routes in the world. The straight is just 4 km wide at its narrowest point between Elsinore (Danish: Helsingør) and Helsingborg. In 1420, the Danish king built Kronborg castle in Elsinore in order to the levy toll. The cannons of this castle were aimed at the strait to convince the passing ships to pay their dues. Toll was also levied at the Great Belt and the Little Belt to prevent ships from evading the Sound Toll. Denmark abolished the toll in 1857, mainly under diplomatic pressure from the United States.72

The levying of the toll has resulted in an historical source unique in its kind, as the Danish clerks in Elsinore kept records of their activities. These records are called the Sound Toll Registers (STR) and span a period of over 300 years – spanning the period: 1497-1857 – and offer an impressive amount of detailed information on ships passing the Sound. The registers consist of 700 volumes covering sixty meters of shelf space in the Danish National Archives. Information on goods, tolls, shipmasters, ports of departure (from the 1660s) and destinations are available for about 1.8 million passages. Because of its enormous size the STR are famous as

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30 one of the greatest serial sources on European trade and shipping.73_{That said, as any historical} source, the STR also have some drawbacks. There were other trade routes connecting the Baltic region and Western Europe: the before mentioned Little Belt and Great Belt, trade via Swedish Gothenburg, via the White Sea and Russian Archangelsk, or through the Schleswig-Holstein channel (or Kiel channel) from 1784, and of course trade overland. Furthermore, some ships were exempt from paying toll, and others committed fraud.74_{Finally, captains did not always} report their destination correctly to the Danish officials because they did not have a certain specific destination, or because their destination changed after passing the Sound.

In this thesis the STR are used as a historical source, but the Sound Toll was also an institution, which changed over time. The toll was an important resource for the Danish state as it was the principal source of income for the Danish king. At times the toll dues comprised as much as 20% of the income of the Danish state. The toll thus allowed the Danish king to rely less on the nobility for funds. The toll did not remain unchanged for 300 years. Here a brief history of the toll is sketched on the basis of Ole Degn’s Guide and concordance to the Sound Toll Registers,

1497-1857 on microfilm.75_{Initially the Sound toll was a ship toll: each ship had to pay a set}

amount when passing by Kronborg castle. Soon the toll became more complicated as ships from some nations were exempt or received a discount; the size of the ship was taken into account, as well as the size of cargo. In 1549, buoy money was added: a flat rate to be paid by all ships passing the Sound, for the maintenance of buoys in the Sound. As early as the fifteenth century, certain goods – such as salt or wine – were also taxed specifically. In 1548, an ad valorem duty was introduced. Ships of unprivileged nation had to pay a tax one hundredth of the value of their cargo when passing the Sound. The term unprivileged nations implies there must have been privileged nations, Denmark instituted different tariffs for different nations according to its relation with them. At times, ships from the Hanseatic Cities and the Dutch Republic for example paid less tax than ships from England or France. The toll thus became an object of international politics.76

Although the possibilities of the STR are widely recognized, the registers are rarely used because of their size. Most researchers consider it too time-consuming to consult the original registers. Instead, the information of STR is generally accessed by consulting the summarizing statistical tables called Tabeller over skibsfart og vaere transport gennem Oresund 1497-1783 (Copenhagen and Leipzig, 1906-1953) by Nina Bang and Knut Korst. Since their publication in

73_{Erik Gøbel, ‘The Sound Toll Registers Online Project, 1497-1857’, International Journal of Maritime}

History XXII, 2 (December 2010) 305-324, 305.

74_{Gøbel, ‘The Sound Toll Registers Online Project’, 319-321.} 75_{Degn, Guide and concordance to the Sound Toll Registers.}

Eighteenth century Baltic coffee trade.