Some economists argue that a company brings substantial advantages in solving problems of exchange in long-distance trade; exchanges can be extended beyond an adherent group thus expanding the economic potential (North, Wallis, and Weingast, 2009). Historians, on the other hand, have demonstrated that companies often relied on networks (i.e., adherent groups) to facilitate their operations, effectively obfuscating the delineation between companies and networks (Fusaro 2012; Antunes and Polonia 2016).
Against the backdrop of the English Civil Wars (1642-1651) and the Act of Navigation (1651), this paper studies the charter for and political deliberations of a new and hitherto unknown company: the America Company. Its plans being in a misfiled folder in the New York Public Library, it is a unique case to study the plans to form a company by a multi-national Amsterdam-based network. This network had successfully organized the trade between Europe and the English Atlantic colonies of Virginia, Barbados and the Leeward Islands. Combining these plans with uniquely rich source material from the political hearing in the Dutch States General and notarial deeds in Amsterdam and Barbados, this paper is able to uncover economic exchanges as well as ideas about how to a company would best serve the interest of the commonwealth. In the hearing, both the proponents and opponents of the new company share their ideas on overcoming problems of exchange in long-distance trade and the role of the company in society.
Based on this primary source material, this paper argues that the main reason for the new company structure was that it provided the authority to take over the English colonies during the Anglo-Dutch War (1652-1654). Having being banished from English ports was one thing, but being excluded from credible third-party (English) institutional contractual enforcement was what ended their business – the proponents argued. Moreover, alternatives of organizing long-distance trade, such as a flotilla, came with substantial downsides compared to a Company.
[SAM note: add Ellen Nye as co-convenor; add Sophus Reinert (Harvard) as chair]