Europe, the Caribbean, and China: The Trading Places and Personal Connections of New York Merchants, 1750–1800

With the Navigation Acts, Great Britain forbade its colonists from conducting direct trade with foreign countries and colonies. After the United States achieved independence, American merchants worked to expand their trade networks across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Four months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the Albany, New York-based merchants Jacob Cuyler and Leonard Gansevoort used their personal connections to extend their trade relationships to Europe and the West Indies. Through New York City merchant Nicholas Hoffman, Cuyler and Gansevoort made acquaintance with “Jan Bronkhorst Merchant at Croisie in Brittany.” The partnership sought French goods from Bronkhorst as well as an introduction to his partners in Amsterdam “[we] Being destitute of a Connection in Holland.” In May 1784, Cuyler and Gansevoort wrote to John Murray, also of New York City, and asked to be connected with his “House in London.” In late 1784, the company sponsored a trade expedition bound for Danish-owned St. Croix and other non-British Caribbean islands.

American merchants extended their trade relationships beyond the Atlantic. In 1785, investors from Albany and New York City sponsored Stewart Dean’s voyage to China. The New Yorkers hoped to gain a foothold in the East Asian tea trade once monopolized by the British East India Company. Dean had to cultivate relationships with Hong merchants in Canton before he could sell and trade his cargo.

I propose a paper that will present historians with a better picture of early American international trade relationships. Using the records of Cuyler, Gansevoort & Co. and Stewart Dean’s voyage to China, this paper will explore early American merchants and their trade relationships. Moreover, this paper will demonstrate how early American merchants used their international dealings to express and expound upon their new self-understandings as United States citizens.