Portuguese and Amsterdam Sephardic Merchants in the Tobacco Trade
Tierra Firme and Hispaniola in the Early Seventeenth Century
By Yda Schreuder
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About This Book
Portuguese and Amsterdam Sephardic Merchants in the Tobacco Trade is a history of the role of Portuguese and Sephardic merchants in the tobacco industry and trade of Amsterdam. It focuses on the contraband trade with Tierra Firme and Hispaniola in the early seventeenth century as documented in the Engel Sluiter Historical Documents Collection.
The Engel Sluiter Historical Documents Collection is a unique archival collection for the purpose of research on the territorial conflict between the Spanish Habsburg Empire and the Dutch Republic in the context of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648). Sluiter collected documents from archives around the world with a focus on trade and fiscal records which document the rise to commercial prominence of the Dutch Republic, the intricacies of Spanish and Portuguese trade and navigation, and the Contaduria which report revenues and expenditures of the Spanish Crown along with import and export duties. The documents in the collection relate mainly to Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese trade affairs in Europe and Spanish and Portuguese overseas territories but include references to English and French accounts of payments to Spain as well. The majority of the documents are in Spanish, transcribed, translated in English, and provided with notes by Engel Sluiter himself. The Caribbean Collection, including Tierra Firme and Hispaniola, contains documents on Dutch mercantile trade practices – mostly smuggling as Spain and the Dutch Republic were at war with each other – and Spanish trade regulations and efforts to block foreign access to trade goods. We thus learn a great deal about foreigners involved in illegal trade in which capture, corruption and bribery played an important role in particular with respect to the tobacco trade which was highly regulated under Spanish rule.
Sometimes, when foreign vessels were captured and hauled into port, mariners or merchant smugglers were reported by name and port of origin and voyage details were recorded. We thus gain insight into the specifics of the merchants and their trading networks as well as the goods being smuggled. Concern about tobacco smuggling is referred to in several of the reports and resulted in plans to prohibit tobacco cultivation or allow cultivation with royal permission only. In several instances recommendations were made to undermine smuggling activities in specific coastal regions where tobacco cultivation occurred and where frequent contacts were made between Dutch mariners and merchants and coastal populations including Amerindians, Creoles, runaway Blacks and "Portuguese" present in coastal areas. Spanish documents display a concern about "Portuguese" in coastal areas as they were associated with Conversos, New Christians who often served as go-between in trade and finance in the Spanish Habsburg Empire. The same group was often thought to be in contact with English, French and Dutch smugglers, and the records suggest that Portuguese merchants were engaged in trade with Bayonne, London and Amsterdam through merchant networks that had been expanded and extended throughout the Atlantic world.
Reviews
“In the seventeenth century, Amsterdam became one of the world’s chief tobacco markets. Yda Schreuder reveals the key role played in this development by Portuguese Jews. These recent immigrants, who collaborated with fellow merchants in the Iberian Peninsula, obtained much of their tobacco through smuggling in Spanish America” —Wim Klooster, Robert H. and Virginia N. Scotland Endowed Chair in History and International Relations, Department of History, Clark University, USA.
“Little-known materials from the Engel Sluiter collection at the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library allowed Yda Schreuder to shed new light on the early seventeenth-century development and expansion of the tobacco trade from Tierra Firme and Hispaniola. Schreuder, a leading expert on Sephardic trading networks in the early modern Atlantic, presented with Portuguese and Amsterdam’s Sephardic Merchants in the Tobacco Trade in the Early Seventeenth Century a fascinating study on the widespread web of contraband, smuggling, bribery, and fraud in which the trade in the ‘Devil’s Weed’ flourished” —Professor Jeroen DeWulf, Berkeley Research University of California, USA.
“This thorough account traces the deep involvement of Portuguese people and Sephardic Jews in the transatlantic tobacco trade. Schreuder closely follows the entangled ties that brought together diverse groups in illicit trade. The result was the rise of tobacco as a global commodity. Through her clear analysis of the existing sources, Schreuder lays the groundwork for subsequent studies on this important topic” —Melissa Morris, Assistant Professor of History, University of Wyoming, USA.
Author Information
Yda Schreuder is Professor Emerita of Geography at the University of Delaware and Research Associate at the Hagley Museum and Library, USA. She previously published a monograph on Amsterdam’s Sephardic merchants and the Atlantic sugar trade in the seventeenth century.
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Table of Contents
List of Figures; Preface; Portuguese and Amsterdam Sephardic Merchants in the Tobacco Trade in the Early Seventeenth Century; The Contraband Tobacco Trade with Spanish America: Tierra Firme and Hispaniol; Portuguese Merchants and the Tobacco Trade with Tierra Firme; Portuguese Merchants and the Tobacco Trade with Hispaniola; Conclusion; Bibliographic Notes; Index
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