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- Convenors:
-
Nunziatella Alessandrini
(CHAM)
Benedetta Maria Crivelli (Bocconi University)
- Location:
- Sala 78, Piso 1
- Sessions:
- Friday 19 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
With the present session we aim to analyze the wide network of commercial routes, their structures and commercial strategies and the way how the local institutions intervened to promote certain routes affecting the development of peripheral areas of the Iberian empire.
Long Abstract:
With the present session we aim to analyze the wide network of commercial routes that, originating from Lisbon's seaport - a cross-cultural place and intersection of routes and an active place of reception and redistribution of a great variety of products -, put in connection distant countries or even continents.
To understand Lisbon as a dynamic space, key-emporium in the international trade system and privileged observation post for the comprehension of ties which bound Europe to the different parts of the Iberian Empire, from the South Atlantic regions to Asia, we aim to study the commercial flows that employed the port of Lisbon as a centre of intermediation and interchange of colonial products and European manufactures.
Starting from an approach focused on communities of merchants active in the Iberian world, we wish, on the one hand, to analyze their structures and commercial strategies, understanding how the choice of given commercial routes influenced the formation of formal or informal social networks which enabled the interaction of different ethnic, religious and national groups and, on the other hand, how the local institutions intervened to promote certain routes affecting the development of peripheral areas of the Iberian empire
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 19 July, 2013, -Paper short abstract:
The paper's objective is to explore the role that Italian merchants managed to secure thanks to the relationship they maintained with the political and commercial élites of the Iberian peninsula and their profitable to penetration into Atlantic trade.
Paper long abstract:
The paper focuses on the role of a group of Italian merchants, based in Lisbon, that were engaged in sugar and slave trade in the Atlantic islands, between the XVI and the XVII centuries.
At that time, the system of contracts which regulated the exploitation of commercial routes in the Atlantic was dominated by an Iberian élite, which, by taking advantage of its economic power, succeeded to reach a prominent position vis-à-vis the political power. After the unification of the crowns, that system survived and the commerce with the Atlantic remained largely centred in Lisbon, although Seville became the organizational centre of slave trade with India of Castile and the Habsburgs fostered policies to limit foreign presence in the colonial commerce.
The paper's objective is to explore the role that Italian merchants managed to secure thanks to their relationship with the political and commercial élites of the Iberian peninsula and their profitable penetration into trade routes dominated by greats Portuguese and Castilian contractors.
The aim is to reflect upon the structures of exchanges that were at the base of the creation of informal networks that were built in relation to overimposed commercial strategies, trying to understand what identities the commercial agents adopted to guarantee the success of their operations. In this context, the relation with the central power was fundamental to comprehend which interests, the Crown on the one hand, the merchant groups on the other, exploited to their advantage to reach their commercial objectives.
Paper short abstract:
This paper deals with the Persian silk trade and the Portuguese empire's incorporation in the Habsburg Monarchy. It considers: 1. the lobbying of economic groups involved in the silk business throughout the empire; 2. the place of the Persian Gulf in the global politics of the Habsburg Monarchy.
Paper long abstract:
This paper discusses why a contract on the Persian silk, seemingly fundamental for the alliance between Iberians and Persians in the early seventeenth century, was never established. It argues that the Habsburg interest in the Shah's silk cannot be understood without considering all the commercial routes and networks created by the global Iberian empire that resulted from the union of Portugal and Spain (1580-1640). Hence, it analyzes how the silk trade between Iberians and Persians collided with important silk production centers in Spain and in China, as well as with the interests of economic groups (producers and merchants) engaged in their commerce.
Balancing the position of both the formal and informal structures of this newly-created global Iberian empire, this paper discusses three problems. Firstly, it studies the objections the Persian silk commerce arose from the Spanish producers of silk and the overseas merchants involved in the Chinese silk trade. Secondly, it examines the impact the Persian silk trade would have had in the commercial routes orquestrated between Lisbon and the overseas world. Thirdly, it analyzes how Madrid, as the decision-centre of the empire, dealt with the Persian silk negotiations with the Safavid court and how it balanced Portuguese and Spanish interests in this affair. It argues that the Habsburg commitment to the Persian silk trade mirrored the position the Persian Gulf occupied in the Catholic Monarchy's wider hierarchy of interests.
Paper short abstract:
This paper reflects on the role of material culture in the shaping of global, transnational and transcultural histories through the cases of porcelain and cotton.
Paper long abstract:
This paper investigates the ways in which objects are used in history to create new understandings of geographies of interaction. From porcelain to cotton textiles, commodities connected different areas of the world in the early modern period. Ambassadorial gifts, rarities and luxury goods also served to connect different states and empires. Yet, these and other artefacts created their own geographies that do not necessarily conform to our present-day understanding of the physical map of the world. They also permit the imagining of other people, shaping ideas of worth and cultural distance as well as acting as mediums of commercial and economic exchange. This paper explores non-textual sources through a series of case studies. Riello's research on cotton textiles shows their 'global reach' as commodities but raises the issue of how the progressive expansion of their use from Afro-Eurasia into the Atlantic and the Americas should be narrated. Can we talk about a process of diffusion part of early modern globalisation, or should we conceive instead these artefacts as part of individual cultures? What is the role of European traders in articulating markets and in shaping products? Gerritsen's research by contrast, reflects on the concept of 'the local' by considering the geography of production of porcelain in China vis-a-vis their global distribution in the Ming and Qing periods. Together they wish to consider the types of connections that artefacts and commodities created in the early modern period and how they structured the physical and conceptual space that historians call 'global history'.
Paper short abstract:
This paper deals with the reconstruction of the geography of principal mercantile routes in the restored Portugal and with the weight of politic factors
Paper long abstract:
In the restored Portugal, released from the Spanish domination, the Italian merchants, that operated in Lisbon, succeeded to incentivize their affairs with the creation of multiple commercial ties: these are both informal bonds, that, by counting on a several numbers of commercial agents, launched an exchange system of goods and financial service, and others more institutionalized, that were generated from different commercial initiatives. In the process of development of the Portuguese economy, started in the second half of the XVII century, the port of Lisbon simultaneously turned into a centre of propagation of various trading routes and a meeting point of merchants of different nationalities.
The focus of the paper, which will rely on original documentation, will be twofold: reconstructing the geography of principal mercantile routes, that, originating from Lisbon, linked commercial interests of Europe, American, Africa and Asia and analyzing the weight of politic factors to establish in which cases their presence was fundamental in the choice of strategies within the network. The paper will ask if political factors could have been crucial and if they had affected into relationships of cooperation, generating competitive situations.
Paper short abstract:
The paper explores the Italian traders of Lisbon through the study of their institutions in the port. This perspective will contribute to understanding their commercial strategies and the rivalries between the different components of the community, by stressing the pre-eminent role of the Genoese.
Paper long abstract:
The paper focuses on the Italian traders in eighteenth-century Lisbon. Their persisting role in connecting the Mediterranean and the Atlantic markets is supported by manifold evidence but has been largely overlooked by historians. The analysis of their institutions will help to shed light on the strategies they used to compete with the other trading nations and maritime powers. The Italians who settled in early-modern Lisbon were from different states, had different consuls, and competed among them, but shared the same religious institutions. The church of Nossa Senhora de Loreto and the city's Convent of Capuchins were entitled to the "Italian nation" as a whole. From the XVII century, the Genoese challenged the hegemony of the Florentines and became the most prominent group in the Italian community. This paper aims to show how, in the following century, they consolidated their position in the port at the detriment of the other Italians. The monopolistic control of the nation's church and convent was one of their main preoccupations. The documentation conserved in the state archives of Genoa and Venice allows us to understand the importance of both institutions for the management of legal and illegal trade. The Genoese also used their pre-eminent role to impose the other Italian merchants the payment of fees and contributions in their own favor. The Genoese ambitions were supported not only by some of the most important aristocratic families of the republic, but also by the Apostolic Nuncio to Lisbon.
Paper short abstract:
I would like to anlyse the activities of the trading company of the Habsburg Empire, founded in 1772. I especially focus on how it changed the constellation of European powers in Asia
Paper long abstract:
As a consequence of the Pragmatica Sanctio and the rise to power of Maria Theresa the Habsburg Empire was unable to use the exit in the Nordic Sea (Ostend) to the international waters. So it had to look for alternatives in the Adriatic. These resulted in the establishment of new colonies and worked very well, and also harmed Portuguese interests in India. This positive turn was due to an extraordinary vacuum situation, the result of the War of Independence of the North American colonies and the Franco-British status quo. Thanks to Alexandre Lobato, we know Austrian activity in Mozambique. This makes necessary to re-evaluate the role of the new agent in the Indian area (whether in Malabar or in Nicobar Islands), as well as the forms of cooperation and friction between Denmark and Portugal that finally disconcerted the ambitions of the Habsburg colonizers. The ad hoc and adventurous nature of these initiatives remains also a question and leads to some considerations about the second wave of European colonial empires. The creation of commercial companies (some of them ephemeral, while others more enduring) followed the Dutch model, and in general the Nordic scheme, a new methodology for colonialist capital investment. The Portuguese reforms are less researched compared with the different parts of the vast empire (Africa, Brazil and India) and especially if they are compared with the Swedish, Danish or German and French and British counterparts.