Final Report Summary - MERCHANT NETWORKS (Trade between Spain and the Habsburg Monarchy (1725-1815): Merchant Networks in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic) The research project explored merchant networks between Habsburg Central Europe and the Spanish Empire between 1725 and 1815. The main line of the project was to reconstruct those forms of mercantile cooperation in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic between the port cities of Trieste, Genoa, Barcelona and Cadiz that managed commodity and financial flows between the Austrian and the Spanish economies over the course of a century that marked a profound social and economic transformation not only in both imperial spaces, but also on a farther-reaching European level. These research tasks were addressed by studying a broad range of sources in a range of archives in Spain, Italy, and Austria. The main part of archival research was dedicated to the systematic exploration of notary deeds in the corresponding archives of Cadiz, Barcelona, Genoa and Trieste. This information was cross-checked and completed by population censuses, foreigners’ naturalization and matriculation into the Merchant Guild and fiscal sources in the Cadiz City Archive, the Archive of the Indies in Seville and the Historical National Archive in Madrid. The second big block of sources studied were consular and ambassadors’ reports of both the Habsburg Monarchy and Spain, stored in the Austrian State Archive in Vienna, the Historical National Archive in Madrid, the General Archive in Simancas and the Catalan Library in Barcelona. In these archives also additional documents were studied such as the license for silver export (Simancas), business contracts between the State and merchants (Madrid, Simancas, Vienna), licenses for ships (Vienna, Seville) and custom registers (Seville, Vienna, Barcelona). The third big block of sources was commercial correspondence, stored in the Barcelona City Archive and the Milanese State Archive. And, finally, the fourth block consisted in commercial lawsuits accessed at the Historical National Archive in Madrid and the Archive of the Crown of Aragon in Barcelona.The information of this ample sample of sources was organized in different databases, including one on actor relationships and Excel spreadsheets on quantitative data of commercial transactions.The project’s aims and tasks can be accessed on the project website. http://www.upo.es/investiga/republicas/merchant_networks/index.jspResults and conclusions of the project are described according to the four main research issues addressed in this project:1) Merchants and their networks at and between the studied port citiesHabsburg merchants created networks between the studied port cities by emigration and settlement. While this tendency began already in the late 17th century, as Klaus Weber’s research has demonstrated for the Bohemian community, the inflow of tradespeople from the Habsburg dominions to both Cadiz and Barcelona augmented considerably over the course of the century. In Cadiz, population census registers 29 Habsburg subjects during 1764 and 1773 and 65 in 1791. Among them, Lombardian traders took the lead, while both Hungarian and Tyrolean merchants were of smaller quantitative scope (between 8 to 9 individuals each according to notary deeds). New data on commercial transactions and additional actors amplified Klaus Weber’s research on the Tyrolean community by demonstrating that their spatial scope encompassed Trieste and Barcelona beside Genoa and reached as far as Peru. Milanese traders concentrated mainly on trade with Genoa, and to a lesser degree on Barcelona and Livorno, while other Mediterranean ports such as Marseilles played a second-range, but still important role. The Greppi firm fits pretty well into this picture, although they traded through Trieste as well while its business rested on a network of nearly global scope, with important points of gravity in France, Amsterdam and London on the one hand and throughout Spanish America on the other hand. But also Hamburg, the Baltic region and Morocco were part of the far-reaching trading activity of the Cadiz branch of the Milanese enterprise, while Asian products were acquired via Lisbon. While it is difficult to assess the overall amount of trade and how it developed over the 18th century, the continuous immigration and settlement of merchants from the Habsburg dominions suggests a steady growth and demonstrates that Habsburg commercial capital was able to integrate into long-distance trade in the Western Mediterranean and the Atlantic. In contrast to what has been repeated in many studies on Mediterranean trade in general and on Trieste in particular, it has been clearly demonstrated that the Habsburg port city integrated into the international networks of far-distance trade, reaching out not only to Barcelona, but to Cadiz and from there further on to Spanish America and the European Atlantic coast. These direct networks managed, thus, to replace the indirect intermediation with international trade flows in the Western Mediterranean through both Livorno and Genoa, as it had been usually practiced during the early modern age until the first decades of the 18th century. 2) Trans-imperial and trans-national networksThe different sub-groups of Habsburg traders developed different network strategies: Thus, Tyrolean traders relied heavily on family enterprises as well as on tight relationships with fellows of their region of origin, although working for Viennese, Swiss and other principals. Triestinian traders, in turn, relied to a much higher degree on contacts with Spaniards or other foreigners out of the cosmopolitan Cadiz trade environment. Milanese merchants as well preferred their co-nationals, but were much less prone to family networks. In particular big companies were obliged to look for a marked transnational network in order to organize its business. Due to the institutional characteristic of the Spanish colonial trade monopoly, this implied either marriages with Spanish women and the subsequent naturalization, or tight and profound ties with Spanish traders. Thus, while the core of the business organization relied rather on family members or alliances with co-nationals, the large scope of trade activities made trans-national or trans-imperial forms of cooperation inevitable.In contrast to Austrian traders who uniquely relied on building up professional networks with Spanish intermediaries in order to conduct their business indirectly with Spanish America, Milanese merchants opted for a tight social integration into the society in the Bay of Cadiz (mainly by marriage). Different forms of social integration, thus, enabled traders to transcend political borders and their institutional barriers and remarkably contributed to lowering transaction costs by providing information and trust.3) Connections between merchants and state institutions: diplomacy and lobbyingMerchants and the network they span did not operate or evolve independent from institutional frameworks, state regulation and the impact of different policies such as the judicial status of foreigners, religious constraints or custom tolls. However, it has to be taken into account that there was not a homogeneous Habsburg mercantile community. Rather, the Imperial Court’s sovereignty served as umbrella to support judicial claims as they were outset in the Treaties of Vienna (1725) and Aranjuez (1752) between the Courts of Vienna and Madrid. In order to support these claims maritime consulates were established in Cadiz and Alicante in 1726 and 1757 respectively, making use of Flemish and Tuscan accreditation. This already underlines how the wider Habsburg possession played an important part in spurring the landlocked Central European dominions’ integration into international commercial networks. In turn, merchants holding the imperial maritime consulates gained an important support for their business, as the Greppi case demonstrates.4) Connections between merchants and the inner economyThe mercantile networks reached from the port cities up to the financial and mercantile centers in the interior of the Habsburg territories: Viennese merchants invested in mercantile companies in Genoa and Cadiz of which Tyrolean traders were partners and acted, in fact, as correspondents of the principals in the Austrian capital. Another way of connecting Vienna with the Spanish Atlantic was pursued by the Greppi enterprise who had their own Milanese correspondent in Vienna. Hence, migration from the Southern Austrian and Northern Italian provinces, governed by the Imperial Court, served to assure the correct management of capital investments from Vienna and Milan. This engagement served the export of Austrian, Bohemian, Hungarian and Lombardian products such as linen, metal and silk to both Barcelona and Cadiz, and from these as far as Spanish America. In turn, colonial goods (sugar, tobacco, cacao, logwood) and Merino wool were imported that later was employed in woolen manufactories in Moravia (alongside with cochineal and indigo). This already points to the neat links between trade and proto-industrial development. Commercial investments spurred up capital accumulation in Central Europe and fostered purchase of land, the founding of proto-industrial workshops as well as insurance companies.
