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The Raw Cotton Trade: Brazil, Portugal, and Europe during the Industrial Revolution
Series: - European Expansion and Indigenous Response, Volume: 52
Author:
The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
Without Brazilian cotton, Europe’s first factories would have struggled to thrive. This book reveals how Maranhão plantations, Northeastern Brazilian smallholders, and Lisbon merchants sustained an Atlantic trade that supplied France, England, and beyond. It exposes how diverse labor systems, imperial monopolies, and foreign merchant networks shaped global commerce in ways that historians have overlooked. Drawing on unpublished archives and using new data, Felipe Souza Melo demonstrates how Brazil powered early industrialization and why scholarship has largely ignored it. To have a more comprehensive story of cotton and capitalism, it is essential to start with Brazil, and this book provides the missing chapter.
Without Brazilian cotton, Europe’s first factories would have struggled to thrive. This book reveals how Maranhão plantations, Northeastern Brazilian smallholders, and Lisbon merchants sustained an Atlantic trade that supplied France, England, and beyond. It exposes how diverse labor systems, imperial monopolies, and foreign merchant networks shaped global commerce in ways that historians have overlooked. Drawing on unpublished archives and using new data, Felipe Souza Melo demonstrates how Brazil powered early industrialization and why scholarship has largely ignored it. To have a more comprehensive story of cotton and capitalism, it is essential to start with Brazil, and this book provides the missing chapter.
Felipe Souza Melo, Ph.D. (2023), European University Institute, is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Geneva. He is the author of Financiando o negócio de Pernambuco (Hucitec/ABPHE, 2021) and has published extensively on the history of the Portuguese Empire.
General Series Editor’s Foreword
Acknowledgements
Tables, Maps, Figures, and Flowcharts
Abbreviations
Values, Prices, and Conversions
Introduction
1 Goals and Scope of the Book
2 New Perspectives on Raw Cotton
3 The Place of Brazilian Cotton in the Historiography
4 Commodity Chain Analysis and Merchants
5 Sources
6 Book Structure
Introduction to Part 1
1 The Monopoly Trade and How to Get around It
1 Before Cotton Exports
2 The General Trade Company of Grão-Pará and Maranhão and the Beginning of the Cotton Economy
3 Monopoly Companies and the Principal-Agent Problem
4 The Specificity of Pombaline Companies
5 The Configurations of the Colonial Market
6 The GCGPM Operating Plan in Maranhão
7 Illicit Practices within the Monopoly Region
8 The Money Problem
9 The Opportunism of the Administration
10 The End of the Monopoly and Debt Collection
11 Explaining the Company’s Problems
12 Conclusion
2 The Golden Age of Cotton Growing in Maranhão and Its Elite
1 Growing Locations and Expansion
2 The High Productivity of Enslaved People
3 Wealthy Planters and Their Trade Links
4 Slave Trade and Slave Traders
5 Commercial and Agricultural Changes after the Opening of Brazilian Ports
6 Conclusion
Introduction to Part 2
3 The Precarious Sugar Expansion and Changes in the Agrarian Structure Brought by Cotton
1 The Sugar Background and the Emergence of Cotton
2 Free Poor Farmers and Their Enslaved People
3 The Unlikely Dispute between Cotton and Sugar and the Geographical Expansion of Cotton Cultivation
4 Cotton and Food Productivity
5 Conclusion
4 From the Field to the Bale: the Cotton Trade in the Interior of the Northeast
1 The Poverty of the Farmer and the Presence of the Trader and the Middleman
2 Buying the Bale and Shipping It
3 Mercantile Control over Growers
4 Monopolies, Trade Conflicts, and Revolution in Pernambuco
5 Conclusion
5 A Business for Many: Cotton Importers in Lisbon and the Transatlantic Cotton Trade
1 A Multitude of Importers
2 Travelling Agents
3 Companies and State Authorities
4 Lisbon Customs and the Case of Bento José Pacheco
5 Colonial Debts and Money
6 Contraband
7 Conclusion
Introduction to Part 3
6 Export, Exporters, and the Cotton Trade to France and Genoa, the Early Years
1 An Overview of the Cotton Re-Export Trade and Its Merchants
2 Commercial Conditions between Portugal and France
3 Cotton Exports and Navigation until c. 1790
4 The Cotton Trade with Genoa
5 Conclusion
7 The Troubled French Trade from the 1790s Onwards
1 The Loss of Saint-Domingue and the Revolutionary Wars
2 The End of the Peace of Amiens and the Role of the Ports of Cherbourg, Caen, and Nantes
3 Jacome Ratton and Brazilian Cotton
4 The Continental Blockade and the Commercial Situation after the French Invasion of Portugal
5 The French Cotton Industry
6 Conclusion
8 The Brazilian Cotton Trade from Portugal to England
1 The Historical Trajectory of the English Factory and Its Institutions
2 The Debates about Pombal and the English
3 From Gold to Cotton and from London to Liverpool
4 From Wine to Cotton
5 Wealthy Tax Farmers and the Cotton Trade
6 Non-English Exporters and Consular Activity
7 Cotton Purchases in Portugal
8 Shifts in the Trade Balance and Smuggling
9 Conclusion
9 The Place of Brazilian Cotton in British Industry: Ports, Commercial Organization, and Traders
1 London as a Financial and Commercial Center
2 The Cotton Industry in Northern England and in the West of Scotland
3 The Role of Liverpool
4 Cotton Purchases from England
5 The Trade after 1808
6 Conclusion
Conclusion
Appendix A – Main Cotton Importers in Lisbon (1782–1806)
Appendix B – Main Cotton Exporters from Lisbon (1782–1806)
Appendix C – Ports That Imported Cotton from Lisbon (1782–1806)
Appendix D – Vessels Leaving Lisbon in 1789 and 1801
Appendix E – Members of the English Factory in Portugal between 1788 and 1820
Sources and Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
Tables, Maps, Figures, and Flowcharts
Abbreviations
Values, Prices, and Conversions
Introduction
1 Goals and Scope of the Book
2 New Perspectives on Raw Cotton
3 The Place of Brazilian Cotton in the Historiography
4 Commodity Chain Analysis and Merchants
5 Sources
6 Book Structure
Part 1: The Beginning: Monopoly and Agriculture in Maranhão
Introduction to Part 1
1 The Monopoly Trade and How to Get around It
1 Before Cotton Exports
2 The General Trade Company of Grão-Pará and Maranhão and the Beginning of the Cotton Economy
3 Monopoly Companies and the Principal-Agent Problem
4 The Specificity of Pombaline Companies
5 The Configurations of the Colonial Market
6 The GCGPM Operating Plan in Maranhão
7 Illicit Practices within the Monopoly Region
8 The Money Problem
9 The Opportunism of the Administration
10 The End of the Monopoly and Debt Collection
11 Explaining the Company’s Problems
12 Conclusion
2 The Golden Age of Cotton Growing in Maranhão and Its Elite
1 Growing Locations and Expansion
2 The High Productivity of Enslaved People
3 Wealthy Planters and Their Trade Links
4 Slave Trade and Slave Traders
5 Commercial and Agricultural Changes after the Opening of Brazilian Ports
6 Conclusion
Part 2: The Entrance of the Northeast and the Colonial Free Trade
Introduction to Part 2
3 The Precarious Sugar Expansion and Changes in the Agrarian Structure Brought by Cotton
1 The Sugar Background and the Emergence of Cotton
2 Free Poor Farmers and Their Enslaved People
3 The Unlikely Dispute between Cotton and Sugar and the Geographical Expansion of Cotton Cultivation
4 Cotton and Food Productivity
5 Conclusion
4 From the Field to the Bale: the Cotton Trade in the Interior of the Northeast
1 The Poverty of the Farmer and the Presence of the Trader and the Middleman
2 Buying the Bale and Shipping It
3 Mercantile Control over Growers
4 Monopolies, Trade Conflicts, and Revolution in Pernambuco
5 Conclusion
5 A Business for Many: Cotton Importers in Lisbon and the Transatlantic Cotton Trade
1 A Multitude of Importers
2 Travelling Agents
3 Companies and State Authorities
4 Lisbon Customs and the Case of Bento José Pacheco
5 Colonial Debts and Money
6 Contraband
7 Conclusion
Part 3: The Cotton Re-Export Trade and the European Textile Centers
Introduction to Part 3
6 Export, Exporters, and the Cotton Trade to France and Genoa, the Early Years
1 An Overview of the Cotton Re-Export Trade and Its Merchants
2 Commercial Conditions between Portugal and France
3 Cotton Exports and Navigation until c. 1790
4 The Cotton Trade with Genoa
5 Conclusion
7 The Troubled French Trade from the 1790s Onwards
1 The Loss of Saint-Domingue and the Revolutionary Wars
2 The End of the Peace of Amiens and the Role of the Ports of Cherbourg, Caen, and Nantes
3 Jacome Ratton and Brazilian Cotton
4 The Continental Blockade and the Commercial Situation after the French Invasion of Portugal
5 The French Cotton Industry
6 Conclusion
8 The Brazilian Cotton Trade from Portugal to England
1 The Historical Trajectory of the English Factory and Its Institutions
2 The Debates about Pombal and the English
3 From Gold to Cotton and from London to Liverpool
4 From Wine to Cotton
5 Wealthy Tax Farmers and the Cotton Trade
6 Non-English Exporters and Consular Activity
7 Cotton Purchases in Portugal
8 Shifts in the Trade Balance and Smuggling
9 Conclusion
9 The Place of Brazilian Cotton in British Industry: Ports, Commercial Organization, and Traders
1 London as a Financial and Commercial Center
2 The Cotton Industry in Northern England and in the West of Scotland
3 The Role of Liverpool
4 Cotton Purchases from England
5 The Trade after 1808
6 Conclusion
Conclusion
Appendix A – Main Cotton Importers in Lisbon (1782–1806)
Appendix B – Main Cotton Exporters from Lisbon (1782–1806)
Appendix C – Ports That Imported Cotton from Lisbon (1782–1806)
Appendix D – Vessels Leaving Lisbon in 1789 and 1801
Appendix E – Members of the English Factory in Portugal between 1788 and 1820
Sources and Bibliography
Index
This book targets scholars, postgraduate students, and research libraries in global, economic, Atlantic, and Latin American history, slavery, empire, and industrialization, while also appealing to commodity studies specialists.