title: Merchants and Crisis in the Bristol-West India Sugar Trade, 1783-1802
Creators: name: Buckles, Peter
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2025

description: This study focuses on the Bristol-West India sugar trade during the last two decades of the eighteenth century. It uses a case study of Bristol merchants Tobin &amp; Pinney, who were importing sugar from Nevis, St Kitts, and other islands, in this period. Their letters are used as the basis of a qualitative analysis, which is backed up with reference to letters sent by James Sutton, Thomas Harris, and John Fisher Weare – all Bristol merchants and peers of Tobin &amp; Pinney – to absentee planter, William Dickinson. This is supported with a quantitative analysis of the wharfage books kept by Bristol’s Society of Merchant Venturers, which recorded the shipping and goods entered into Bristol for this period. Finally, Social Network Analysis is used to help understand the dynamics and interrelations of the individuals and firms engaged in the Bristol-West India trade. The primary aim of this study is to assess the impact that crises had on trade in this period, and the strategies that merchants used to overcome the challenges that they faced. The secondary aim is to elucidate and broaden our understanding of the roles different actors played at various points along the commodity chain. To achieve these aims, the thesis examines the activity of the merchants at the centre of this case study at different stages of the sugar production and distribution process, and assesses their use of credit and management of networks. The thesis argues that in order to overcome the challenges following the end of the American Revolution in 1783, merchants had to be knowledgeable and, at times, interventionist cogs in the ‘plantation machine’, with a deep understanding of the sugar production process. To alleviate the threat of warfare to shipping, merchants lobbied incessantly for convoys and made the most of the market for insurance. The study argues that the impact of warfare on the market was muted by the ability of merchants to withhold their sugar. Furthermore, it argues that the greatest source of price uncertainty came not from war, but from the transition between various market conditions. It was not war in this period, but the Saint Domingue Revolution (a successful and highly impactful slave insurrection) which had a greater impact on the market. At the same time, under pressure from these crises, merchants began advancing credit more cautiously, and took extra steps to safeguard their investments and screen potential debtors. To strengthen their networks, these merchants actively intervened, replacing individuals in influential positions, and took on a host of extra responsibilities to attract and retain clients. Throughout, the role of other actors who helped reduce moral hazards is emphasised, including plantation managers, captains, crew, brokers, coopers, attorneys, and the women close to the firm. The study argues that, far from being the ultimate crisis, warfare was but one challenge amongst many. Merchants, used to warfare and what it meant for trade, treated it as a normal part of the business environment as they continually adapted to changing conditions.