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Anglo-American Merchants And Stratagems For Success In Spanish Imperial Markets, 1783-1807, Linda K. Salvucci

History Faculty Research

When Josiah Blakeley, consul of the United States at Santiago de Cuba, wrote these lines to Secretary of State James Madison on November 1, 1801 he had recently been jailed by administrators on that island. This remarkable situation notwithstanding, his sentiments still neatly express the paradox of trade between the United States and Spanish Caribbean ports. The expanding hinterlands of New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore furnished North American merchants with ever increasing, exportable food supplies and led to fierce competition for new markets at the end of the eighteenth century. At the same time, Spain's American colonies remained chronically, often …