Abstract

"Baubles of Boston: The Throughput of an Evolving Empire in the Pacific"

Eric Oakley, Kennesaw State University (eric.oakley@kennesaw.edu)

Bostonian merchants undertook daring experiments in the Pacific Ocean during the years following the American Revolution, such that American vessels came to dominate commerce in the ocean hemisphere between 1787 and 1800. The historiography of these enterprises has often emphasized legendary expeditions, hagiography of key navigators, and the development of U.S. territorial claims in the region. This paper instead stresses the role of global commodities in the development of American trade in the eighteenth-century Pacific World. The reorientation of Boston’s revolutionary-era business apparatus was central to the success of commercial ventures beyond the Atlantic World. In geographic terms, Bostonians built new enterprises upon a strong foundation of revolutionary-era business networks spanning the town’s forelands and hinterlands. The throughput of cargo commodities such as iron, copper, textiles—not to mention ship tools, outfit, and provisions—demonstrates that merchants orchestrated the movement of goods originating in, or destined for, dozens of locales in all quarters of the globe. Furthermore, the geographic footprint of those commodities indicates the pivotal role of entrepôt dynamics upon Boston’s emergent commercial empire in the Pacific.