scholarly journals Brazilian Export Growth and Divergence in the Tropics during the Nineteenth Century

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 677-706 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER DAVID ABSELL ◽  
ANTONIO TENA-JUNGUITO
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Competitive Advantage ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Export Growth ◽  
British West Indies ◽  
Slave Emancipation ◽  
Accuracy Test ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
Constant Growth

AbstractThe objective of this article is to reappraise both the accuracy of the official export statistics and the narrative of Brazilian export growth during the period immediately following independence. We undertake an accuracy test of the official values of Brazilian export statistics and find evidence of considerable under-valuation. Once corrected, during the post-independence decades (1821–50) Brazil's current exports represented a larger share of its economy and its constant growth is found to be more dynamic than any other period of the nineteenth century. We posit that this dynamism was related to an exogenous institutional shock in the form of British West Indies slave emancipation that afforded Brazil a competitive advantage.

The Problem of Liberal Empire Reconsidered

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 167-177
Author(s):  
Adom Getachew
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
West Indies ◽  
The Political ◽  
British West Indies ◽  
The West ◽  
Economic Violence ◽  
Liberal Political Economy ◽  
Liberal Imperialism

This review essay situates Christopher Taylor’s Empire of Neglect: The West Indies in the Wake of British Liberalism (2018) in the context of the two-decade-long debate about the emergence of a liberal imperialism during the nineteenth century. Through an examination of the political economy of emancipation in the British West Indies, Taylor recasts the problem of liberal imperialism by decentering its justificatory discourses in the metropole to examine its practical effects in the colonies. In this turn, he provides an important and missing “materialization” of liberal empire that makes the deep connections between free trade and freeing slaves legible. The practical and theoretical coincidence of these nineteenth-century developments as well as Taylor’s reconstruction of a West Indian tradition of political economy provide a new way of conceptualizing colonial economic violence elaborated as the product of a neglectful empire. It is in this tradition of critiquing and resisting a neglectful empire that we find critical and normative resources to think beyond the terms of our own entrapments within the terms of liberal political economy.

scholarly journals Conversion and Curriculum: Nonconformist Missionaries and the British and Foreign School Society in the British West Indies, Africa and India, 1800–50

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 410-425
Author(s):  
Inge Dornan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Elementary Education ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
West Indies ◽  
British West Indies ◽  
Religious Persecution ◽  
Elementary Instruction ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
Missionary Societies ◽  
Joseph Lancaster

This article examines the ways in which Nonconformist missionary societies worked hand in hand with the British and Foreign School Society (BFSS) to provide them with pedagogic training in the British System and BFSS teaching manuals and resources, as part of their evangelical mission of conversion in the British West Indies, Africa and India in the nineteenth century. The BFSS appealed to Nonconformist missionaries because it was based on unsectarian pedagogy, pioneered by the educationalist Joseph Lancaster. The article explores the various obstacles these missionaries faced, including the religious persecution they experienced in teaching an unsectarian system and the educational difficulties they experienced in persuading parents and local governments of the value of elementary education. It also draws attention to the ways in which they fought race and sex prejudice in the teaching of Africans, slaves and young girls. The current literature on missionary activities in the early nineteenth century pays scant attention to their role as educators: the article reveals the degree of their educational ambition and zeal and the lengths they went to in order to implement a progressive system of unsectarian elementary instruction in key parts of the British empire during the nineteenth century.

scholarly journals TRADE BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND THE BRITISH WEST INDIES (1823-1846)

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 589-598
Author(s):  
N. V. Sang ◽  
L. Trang
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
The United States ◽  
British West Indies ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
Trade Relations ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of

Purpose of the study: This study investigated the history of trade relations between the United States and the British West Indies from 1823 to 1846. Methodology: This article uses a combination of historical approach and interdisciplinary approach through statistics, analysis of statistical reports, and content of scientific publications on the topic. Main Findings: The author of this article has analyzed the value of trade and the structure of exchanged products, compared the trade value between the US and the British West Indies with other regions as well as its effect on the US, British Indies in the context of the British-American relations in the first half of the nineteenth century. Applications of this study: This study can be useful to understand the history of trade relations between the US and the British colonies in the West Indies during the first half of the nineteenth century. It can also be used for academic purposes for universities, researchers, lecturers of history and political sciences as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students. Novelty/Originality of this study: This paper is the first study on the history of trade relations between the US and the British West Indies between 1823 and 1846.

Outside Options, Coercion, and Wages: Removing the Sugar Coating

2020 ◽  
Vol 130 (630) ◽  
pp. 1678-1714
Author(s):  
Christian Dippel ◽  
Avner Greif ◽  
Daniel Trefler
Keyword(s):  
Informal Sector ◽  
West Indies ◽  
British West Indies ◽  
Formal Sector ◽  
Slave Emancipation ◽  
Unique Data ◽  
Agricultural Employment ◽  
Outside Options ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact

Abstract In economies with a large informal sector firms can increase profits by reducing workers’ outside options in that informal sector. We formalise this idea in a simple model of an agricultural economy with plantation owners who lobby the government to enact coercive policies—e.g., the eviction and incarceration of squatting smallhold farmers—that reduce the value to working outside the formal sector. Using unique data for 14 British West Indies ‘sugar islands’ from 1838 (the year of slave emancipation) until 1913, we examine the impact of plantation owners’ power on wages and coercion-related incarceration. To gain identification, we utilise exogenous variation in the strength of the plantation system in the different islands over time. Where planter power declined we see that incarceration rates dropped, and agricultural wages rose, accompanied by a decline in formal agricultural employment.

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