Shifting Policies and Persistent Caribbean Connections: Oliver Pollock and the British Trade Networks in Spanish New Orleans, 1769–80

In 1770, Oliver Pollock arrived in New Orleans and became part of a growing British merchant community in New Orleans.  Merchants participated in trade networks that linked New Orleans, its environs, and hinterlands to the Caribbean.  They accepted Louisiana’s produce, pelts, and indigo as payment for manufactured goods, and they introduced slaves from the Caribbean to Louisiana.  Over the course of the 1770s, the relationship of these merchants to the local Spanish officials was precarious though their engagement with the local population proved persistent.

Initially, British merchants and their illicit trade challenged Spanish ability to enforce imperial commercial policies that aimed to restrict trade to and from New Orleans to specific ports within the Spanish Empire.  At the time, there was little market through these officially sanctioned avenues of trade for the crops and furs that reached New Orleans from the interior of North America.  While Governor Alejandro O’Reilly responded to the presence of British merchants operating out of New Orleans in 1770 by expelling many from the colony, his successor Luis de Unzaga often turned a blind eye to their activities.  At times, these Spanish governors turned to the British merchants to furnish New Orleans with flour.  Caribbean trading networks played a part in the success of this trade as well.  Indeed, Pollock and others gained entry to New Orleans when he promised to supply flour. 

With the coming of the American Revolution, Spain decided to aid the rebel colonies and supported the operation of pro-American trade networks.  The circum-Caribbean connections became important for communication and for funneling supplies to the Americans via New Orleans.  Oliver Pollock is perhaps the most obvious merchant in New Orleans to further the ends of the Revolution.