Cosmopolitan Networks in Commerce and Society 1660–1914

From Westphalia to the Caribbean
There was another reason for developing thorough vertical integration.
As in the case of the Bohemian glass industry, these businesses
produced highly fragile and precious items which could not be
entrusted to general haulage and shipping companies. From packing
to long distance transport, unpacking, and sale, these products needed
to be in skilled hands. The increase in long-distance distribution of
such items made the establishment of long-distance networks
inevitable.
Only the commercially most successful families survived Cadiz’s
steep decline as a major Atlantic seaport caused by the loss of the
Spanish mainland colonies. Among them was the Böhl family, originally
from Stralsund and present in Cadiz from the mid-eigtheenth
century. Stralsund, a small port city on Germany’s Baltic coast, ex -
ported linen produced in the hinterland of Mecklenburg and Po mer -
ania. 72 Like the Ellermanns, the Böhl family had also established
themselves in Hamburg. During the 1810s and 1820s they had
acquired vinyards and formed a matrimonial alliance with the British
merchant Thomas Osborne, thus laying the foundation for the company
that to the present day is still a major player in the production
and marketing of Spanish wines, spirits, olive oil, and other foodstuffs.
73 In addition to these leading merchants, the networks of the
Bohemian traders proved to be surprisingly robust during the difficult
period of the Atlantic revolutions. One reason may have been
their close-knit familial networks and independence of outside capital,
which had become risky during the Revolutionary and
Napoleonic Wars. 74 Most of the other German traders left the area
between 1790 and 1830, some returning to Hamburg, others seeking
new opportunities in London. Both places attracted much of the hitherto
illegal direct trade with the newly independent Latin American
states. 75 83
72 David Ormrod, The Rise of Commercial Empires: England and the Netherlands
in the Age of Mercantilism, 1650–1770 (Cambridge, 2003), 150; Weber, Deutsche
Kaufleute, 151–3.
73 Javier Maldonado Rosso, La formación del capitalismo en el Marco de Jerez: De
la vitivinicultura tradicional a la agroindustria vinatera moderna (siglos XVIII y
XIX) (Madrid, 2000), 269–70.
74 Salz, Geschichte der Böhmischen Industrie, 239.
75 Also see Walther L. Bernecker, Die Handelskonquistadoren: Europäische In te -
res sen und mexikanischer Staat im 19. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1988).