From Senegal to Augsburg: Gum Arabic and the Central European Textile Industry in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

West Africa’s role in the early modern economy is usually reduced to that of a supplier of forced labour for American plantations while other types of trade — especially direct trade between Western Africa and Europe — are often marginalised in scholarship. This article argues that the West African substance gum arabic played a vital role in the large-scale production of printed cottons and linens in Europe — one of the major areas of popular consumption at the time. Its unique qualities and the fact that it was available in large quantities made gum arabic from Senegal and Mauritania indispensable in producing high-quality prints in large numbers for a reasonable price. The article advances this argument by looking at Central instead of Western Europe, in order to illustrate how pervasive this substance was in the eighteenth century. Even regions far removed from the Atlantic — such as the South German city of Augsburg, in today’s Bavaria — needed to find a way to access this Senegambian product in order to produce their popular textiles. The article thus seeks to contribute to a better understanding of Africa’s role in the development of European textile industries and its contribution to consumption patterns by following a specific material from Western Africa to Central Europe — from Senegal to Augsburg.

Acknowledgements

Research for this article was funded by the German Research Foundation (Research Grant WE 3613/2-1, ‘The Globalized Periphery. Atlantic Commerce, Socioeconomic and Cultural Change in Central Europe, 1680–1850’) as well as the Viadrina Center B/Orders in Motion.

Notes

1 S. F. Hermbstädt, Magazin für Färber, Zeugdrucker und Bleicher, Zweiter Band (Berlin: Königl. Preuß. Akademische Kunst- und Buchhandlung, 1803), p. 242.

2 See, for example, C.-P. Clasen, Textilherstellung in Augsburg in der Frühen Neuzeit: Band II: Textilveredelung (Augsburg: Dr Bernd Wißner, 1995), p. 258; S. Chassagne, ‘Calico Printing in Europe before 1780’, in The Cambridge History of Western Textiles Vol. i, ed. D. Jenkins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 514–15; O. Raveux, ‘Spaces and Technologies in the Cotton Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: The Example of Printed Calicos in Marseille’, Textile History, 36, no. 2 (2005), p. 132.

3 S. Struckmeier, Die Textilfärberei vom Spätmittelalter bis zur Frühen Neuzeit (14.–16. Jahrhundert): Eine naturwissenschaftlich-technische Analyse deutschsprachiger Quellen (Münster: Waxmann, 2011), pp. 268–69.

4 M. Daumas, Histoire générale des techniques: Les premières étapes du machinisme XVe–XVIIIe siècle, Vol. 2 (Paris: Quadrige, 1965), p. 178.

5 S. Chapman and S. Chassagne, European Textile Printers in the Eighteenth Century: A Study of Peel and Overkampf (London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd, 1981), p. 12.

6 C. Bell, ‘Technik des Blaudrucks in Europa’, in Ein blaues Wunder: Blaudruck in Europa und Japan, ed. H. Walravens (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993), pp. 69–70. See also J. H. Koch, Mit Model, Krapp und Indigo: Vom alten Handdruck auf Kattun und Leinwand (Hamburg: Christians, 1984), pp. 33–34.

7 For example, Völlig entdeckter Cotton- oder Indienne-Druck (Carlsruhe: Michael Macklot, 1771), pp. 11–13, 19, 55–56.

8 For definitions and clarifications of different types of ‘prints’, see A. Überrück, Die christlichen Motive des Blaudrucks: Spiegel der Volksfrömmigkeit in Deutschland vom Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts bis heute (Berlin: LIT, 2008), p. 25; Koch, Mit Model, Krapp und Indigo, pp. 24–25.

9 While textile printing (especially blueprinting) had been common before the late seventeenth century, it had been based on (rather smelly) oil paint that washed out easily. See, for example, Clasen, Textilherstellung, p. 354; Koch, Mit Model, Krapp und Indigo, pp. 22–23; P. Dirr, ‘Augsburger Textilindustrie im 18. Jahrhundert’, Zeitschrift des Historischen Vereins für Schwaben und Neuburg, 37 (1911), p. 28.

10 For example, Überrück, Die christlichen Motive des Blaudrucks, p. 34; P. M. Bauer, Indigo: Die Kunst des Blaudrucks (Weitra: Bibliothek der Provinz, 1997), p. 58.

11 See, for example, M. Bachmann and G. Reitz, Der Blaudruck (Leipzig: VEB Friedrich Hofmeister, 1962), pp. 26, 30; C. F. Kreyßig, Der Zeugdruck und die damit verbundene Bleicherei und Färberei. Volume 4 (Berlin: Rücker & Büchler, 1844), pp. 444–46.

12 Chapman and Chassagne, European Textile Printers in the Eighteenth Century, p. 13; Chassagne, ‘Calico Printing in Europe before 1780’, p. 524; J. L. A. Webb, Desert Frontier: Ecological and Economic Change along the Western Sahel, 1600–1850 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), p. 99.

13 Marseille can be described as a ‘pioneer’ of European cotton printing — a position that arose from the port’s close ties to the Levant and especially from the knowledge of Armenian immigrants in the course of the seventeenth century. However, the techniques used and the quality of the end-products seem to have been of a different nature. For Marseille’s cotton printing industry, see especially Raveux, ‘Spaces and Technologies in the Cotton Industry’; O. Raveux, ‘The Birth of a New European Industry: L’Indiennage in Seventeenth-Century Marseilles’, in The Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textiles, 1200–1850, ed. G. Riello and P. Parthasarathi (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 291–306.

14 For example, C. Bell, ‘Die Geschichte des Blaudrucks’, in Walravens, Ein blaues Wunder, p. 54; Dirr, ‘Agusburger Textilindustrie im 18. Jahrhundert’; W. H. von Kurrer, Geschichte der Zeugdruckerei (Nürnberg: Johann Leonhard Schrag, 1840), p. 6.

15 R. Schillinger, Die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung des Stoffdrucks: Langfristige Tendenzen und kurzfristige Einflüsse (Köln and Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1964), pp. 17–21; B. Obendorfer, ‘Schlesischer Blaudruck’ (PhD thesis, University of Breslau, 1944), p. 63.

16 Völlig entdeckter Cotton- oder Indienne-Druck, p. 10.

17 For example, Georg Gottfried Strelins Realwörterbuch für Kameralisten und Oekonomen. Volume 4 (Nördlingen: Karl Gottlob Beck, 1788), pp. 363–64. W. Hoffmann, Allgemeine Encyclopädie für Kaufleute, Fabrikanten, Geschäftsleute, Handels-, Industrie-, Gewerbe- und Realschulen. Erster Band A–G (Leipzig: Wigand, 1848), p. 788.

18 See, for example, J. G. Dingler, Vitalis Grundriß der Färberei und des Zeugdrucks (Stuttgart and Tübingen: J. S. Gotta'sche Buchhandlung, 1839), p. 470.

19 Etat des marchandises dont on demande le prix actuel, lettre G (15 novembre 1729), Archives Départementales de la Charente-Maritime 41 ETP 237/ 7350 (Fonds de la chambre de commerce et d’industrie de La Rochelle — Cabinet du Président — Peaux, pelleteries et cuirs — Compagnie des Indes — Statistiques de la navigation).

20 Völlig entdeckter Cotton- oder Indienne-Druck, p. 47.

21 For example, A. Ly, La Compagnie du Sénégal (Paris/Dakar: Karthala, 1993), pp. 281–82; P. D. Curtin, Economic Change in Precolonial Africa: Senegambia in the Era of the Slave Trade (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975), pp. 215–18; J. L. A. Webb, ‘The Trade in Gum Arabic: Prelude to French Conquest in Senegal’, Journal of African History, 26, nos 2/3 (1985), pp. 149–68. Webb later discussed European demand more deeply in his Desert Frontier, p. 99, and especially pointed out its relevance for textile printing industries.

22 A. Delcourt, La France et les établissements français au Sénegal entre 1713 et 1763 (Cahors: Memoires de l’Institut Français d’Afrique Noire, 1952), p. 44.

23 See J. L. A. Webb, ‘The Mid-Eighteenth Century Gum Arabic Trade and the British Conquest of Saint-Louis du Sénégal, 1758’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 25, no. 1 (1997), pp. 37–58.

24 J. Inikori, Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England: A Study in International Trade and Development (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 398; M. Berg, ‘In Pursuit of Luxury: Global History and British Consumer Goods in the Eighteenth Century’, Past & Present, 182 (2004), pp. 137–41.

25 P. Marty, ‘Tentatives commerciales anglaises a Portendick et en Mauritanie (1800–1826)’, Revue de L’Histoire des Colonies Franҫaises, 10, no. 2 (1922), p. 289; P. Marty, ‘Tentatives commerciales anglaises a Portendick et en Mauritanie (1800–1826)’, Revue de L’Histoire des Colonies Francaises, 10, no. 1 (1922), pp. 1–2.

26 Delcourt suggests that this may actually have been the result of unclear definitions regarding the word ‘Senegal’ in the treaty. The treaty with England had taken the monopoly of the Senegal trade away from the Compagnie des Indes (but not from French merchants as such). While the underlying assumption in the treaty (very likely shared by the Compagnie as well) had been that ‘Senegal’ meant Saint-Louis and the Senegal River, the ministry in France had interpreted ‘Senegal’ in the more general sense of the coast between Cap Blanc and Sierra Leone, thus opening up French trade in the region to all merchants. Delcourt, La France et les établissements français au Sénegal, p. 88.

27 For example, W. Fiedler, Allgemeines pharmazeutisches, chemisches, mineralogisches Wörterbuch, Erster Band A–D (Mannheim: Schwan & Götz, 1787), p. 5; Strelins Realwörterbuch für Kameralisten und Oekonomen, p. 364.

28 For example, S. Pomet, Histoire Generale des Drogues, simples et composeés (Paris: Ganeau, 1735), pp. 12, 14.

29 Curtin, Senegambia in the Era of the Slave Trade, pp. 216–17.

30 See also Webb, Desert Frontier, p. 97.

31 P. D. Curtin, Economic Change in Precolonial Africa: Supplementary Evidence (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975), p. 64.

32 For example, Curtin’s number of 1,175 exported tons for 1693 includes 979 tons loaded at Portendick, supporting the idea that Portendick’s exports were considerable. Ibid., pp. 64–65.

33 Guillaume Tartel, Controlleur General des Restes … to the King of France, 1721, Archives Départmentales de Loire-Atlantique C 751 N. 41 Cotte 7.

34 Inikori, Africans and the Industrial Revolution, pp. 396–97; Webb, Desert Frontier, pp. 102–05.

35 H. den Heijer, Goud, ivoor en slaven: Scheepvaart en handel van de Tweede Westindische Compagnie op Afrika, 1674–1740 (Zutphen: Walburg, 1997), p. 210, fn. 185. See also A. M. G. Rutten, Dutch Transatlantic Medicine Trade in the Eighteenth Century under the Cover of the West India Company (Rotterdam: Erasmus, 2000), pp. 91, 121.

36 Rutten, Dutch Transatlantic Medicine Trade, p. 91.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid., p. 121.

39 For example, Karsten Niebuhrs Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und anderen umliegenden Ländern. Erster Band (Kopenhagen: Nicolaus Möller, 1774), pp. 143–44; Fiedler, Allgemeines pharmazeutisches, chemisches, mineralogisches Wörterbuch, p. 5; Strelins Realwörterbuch für Kameralisten und Oekonomen, p. 365.

40 J.-P. Filippini, Il porto di Livorno e la Toscana (1676–1814): Volume Primo (Napoli: Ed. Scientif. Italiane, 1998), pp. 54, 59.

41 Karsten Niebuhrs Reisebeschreibung, pp. 143–44.

42 See W. Zorn, Handels- und Industriegeschichte Bayerisch-Schwabens 1648–1870: Wirtschafts-, Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte des schwäbischen Unternehmertums (Augsburg: Verlag der schwäbischen Forschungsgemeinschaft, 1961), p. 64; R. Bettger, Das Handwerk in Augsburg beim Übergang der Stadt an das Königreich Bayern. Städtisches Gewerbe unter dem Einfluss politischer Veränderungen (Augsburg: H. Mühlberger, 1979), p. 48.

43 These sources were systematically collected in J. Schneider et al., Statistik des Hamburger seewärtigen Einfuhrhandels im 18. Jahrhundert: Nach den Admiralitäts- und Convoygeld-Einnahmebüchern (St Katharinen: Scripta Mercaturae, 2001).

44 ‘Atlantic France’ includes the following ports: Bordeaux, Le Havre, Nantes, Rouen, La Rochelle, Lorient, Dunkerque, Bayonne.

45 These issues also strained Hamburg’s relationship with France. France eventually terminated its trade agreement with the Hanseatic port in 1760, although a new treaty was struck nine years later. See K. Weber, Deutsche Kaufleute im Atlantikhandel 1680–1830. Unternehmen und Familien in Hamburg, Cádiz und Bordeaux (München: C. H. Beck, 2001), pp. 167–68. U. Pfister, ‘Great Divergence, Consumer Revolution and the Reorganisation of Textile Markets: Evidence from Hamburg’s import Trade, Eighteenth Century’, LSE Economic History Working Papers, 266 (2017), p. 10.

46 Pfister, ‘Great Divergence’, p. 36.

47 See J. Wimmler, ‘Dyeing Woollens in Eighteenth-Century Berlin: The Königliches Lagerhaus and the Globalization of Prussia through Colouring Materials’, in Cotton in Context: Manufacturing, Marketing and Consumption of Early Modern Textiles in the German-Speaking World, ed. K. Siebenhüner, J. Jordan and G. Schopf (Wien, Köln and Weimar: Böhlau, 2019 — forthcoming).

48 See, for example, K. Weber, ‘Die Admiralitätszoll- und Convoygeld-Einnahmebücher. Eine wichtige Quelle für Hamburgs Wirtschaftsgeschichte im 18. Jahrhundert’, Hamburger Wirtschaftschronik, 1 (2000), pp. 83–112; Pfister, ‘Great Divergence’, p. 11; A. Engel, Farben der Globalisierung. Die Entstehung moderner Märkte für Farbstoffe 1500–1900 (Frankfurt and New York: Campus, 2009), p. 151.

49 Koch, Mit Model, Krapp und Indigo, p. 53.

50 R. A. Müller, ‘Johann Heinrich von Schüle — Aufstieg und Fall des Augsburger Kattunfabrikanten im zeitgenössischen Urteil’, in Unternehmer, Arbeitnehmer: Lebensbilder aus der Frühzeit der Industrialisierung in Bayern, ed. R. A. Müller (München: Oldenbourg, 1987), p. 160; J. Waitzfelder, Der Augsburger Johann Heinrich von Schüle, ein Pionier der Textilwirtschaft im 18. Jahrhundert (Leipzig: Dr Werner Scholl, 1929), pp. 81–84; P. Fassl, ‘Die Augsburger Kattunfabrikantin Anna Barbara Gignoux (1725–1796)’, in Müller, Unternehmer, Arbeitnehmer, p. 154.

51 See K. Newman, ‘Hamburg in the European Economy, 1660–1750’, Journal of European Economic History, 14, no. 1 (1985), pp. 63, 65, 72–74.

52 See J. de Vries and A. van der Woude, The First Modern Economy: Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 489–90.

53 Rutten, Dutch Transatlantic Medicine Trade, p. 121. Rutten suggests that Dutch merchants bought about 545 metric tons of gum in various West African ports in the year 1787.

54 I thank my colleague Anka Steffen, who found an invoice of the Royal African Company in the British archives, which documents a shipment of approximately 13 metric tons of ‘gum Seneca’ to the Rotterdam merchant John Goddard in August 1733. National Archive (Kew) T 70/909, Accounts of the Royal African Company, Invoice books: outwards, 18 August 733.

55 To my knowledge, scholars of the Obwexer firm never mention gum as one of the firm’s trade products. While the Obwexer conducted direct trade in the Dutch Caribbean (namely Curaçao), it does not seem to have engaged in West African trade or to have bought the gum in Amsterdam. This may be an indicator that gum shipped southward from Hamburg was cheaper and easier to obtain in those years. For the Obwexer’s overseas trade, see M. Häberlein and M. Schmölz-Häberlein, Die Erben der Welser. Der Karibikhandel der Augsburger Firma Obwexer im Zeitalter der Revolutionen (Augsburg: Wißner, 1995), esp. p. 62; Zorn, Handels- und Industriegeschichte, p. 58.

56 Koch, Mit Model, Krapp und Indigo, pp. 47–48.

57 Von Kurrer, Geschichte der Zeugdruckerei, p. 9.

58 Zorn, Handels- und Industriegeschichte, p. 58; G. Seibold, Wirtschaftlicher Erfolg in Zeiten des politischen Niedergangs. Augsburger und Nürnberger Unternehmer in den Jahren zwischen 1648 und 1806 (Augsburg: Wißner, 2014), pp. 334, 343.

59 P. Fassl, Konfession, Wirtschaft und Politik: Von der Reichsstadt zur Industriestadt, Augsburg 1750–1850 (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke, 1988), p. 161.

60 Incidentally, J. H. Schüle profited from the dispute’s outcome in the long run, as Lehmann Isaak Hanau & Co. emerged as J. H. Schüle’s largest buyer around 1780. See Zorn, Handels- und Industriegeschichte, p. 58.

61 Nota derer von Jud Lehman Isaac Hanau aus Frankfurt und über Marktbreith anhero gekommenen Gütern, Stadtarchiv Augsburg HWA-Weber KA 58/ F 98 (alternative signature: Weberakten (Deputierte) 98).

62 The only exception dates from 30 April 1772, when Schüle buys four barrels of gum directly from Hanau.

63 See G. Vogel, Der schwarzenbergische Verkehrs- und Handelsort Marktbreit am Main von 1648–1740 und die fränkische Verkehrs- und Handelspolitik (Würzburg: Konrad Triltsch, 1933), pp. 129–32. The sources do not provide Niebeth’s first name, but he is most likely a relative of a certain Jakob Wilhelm Niebeth — an Italian merchant who had relocated to Marktbreit and established a firm there in 1738. See ibid., p. 152.

64 It is not entirely clear whether the sources refer to J. H. Schüle or his nephew Johann Matthäus. The list that forms the basis of the above calculations reads ‘H[err]. Mathaus Schüle’ twice at the beginning of the document only to switch completely to ‘H. Schüle’ thereafter. It seems plausible that ‘H. Schüle’ refers to the uncle, while the first name is included for the less successful and less prominent nephew. Considering that the list is otherwise very consistent in its naming of firms, it seems unlikely that the writer would have switched from ‘H. Mathaus Schüle’ to ‘H. Schüle’ without explanation. For Hillenbrand, see Seibold, Wirtschaftlicher Erfolg, p. 175; B. Rajkay and R. von Stetten, Paul von Stetten d.J. Selbstbiographie: Die Lebensbeschreibung des Patriziers und Stadtpflegers der Reichsstadt Augsburg (1731–1808), Band 1 (Augsburg: Wißner, 2009), pp. 168–69, fn. 4.

65 Müller, ‘Johann Heinrich von Schüle’, p. 162; von Kurrer, Geschichte der Zeugdruckerei, p. 113.

66 Fassl, Konfession, Wirtschaft und Politik, p. 151.

67 Schöppler & Hartmann, Journal, January 1783–March 1792, Textile and Industry Museum Augsburg. I thank Karl Borromäus Murr and Michaela Breil of the Textile and Industry Museum for allowing me access to the books in a very un-bureaucratic manner. They thoroughly investigate the firm Schöppler & Hartmann and their purchases in their article ‘Textile Printing in Early Modern Augsburg: at the Crossroads of Local and Global Histories of Industry’, in Siebenhüner, Jordan and Schopf, Cotton in Context (forthcoming).

68 The amount is provided in Pfund (pounds) in the books, which have been converted to metric tons on the basis of 1 Pfund = 0.48 kilograms.

69 Murr and Breil found that Mahler & Co. also purchased printed textiles from Schöppler & Hartmann and can be described as the latter’s second largest client. See Murr and Breil, ‘Textile Printing’.

70 See Murr and Breil, ‘Textile Printing’, who also explore how the firm eventually loosened these business ties in the early 1790s.

71 Letter from Augsburg’s cotton printers (amongst them Gignoux, J. H. Schüle and Schoeppler & Hartmann) to the city’s merchant board (Merkantil-Gremium), undated, Stadtarchiv Augsburg Commercia 19/1, Auswärtige Schreiben 1797–1806.

72 Specification über nachstehende Baumwoll- und Farb Waaren …, signed bookkeeper Stenger, Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv GL 2653, N. 206, Cotton-Manufactur betr. 1766–1787.

73 V. Hofmann, ‘Die Anfänge der österreichischen Baumwollwarenindustrie in den österreichischen Alpenländern im 18. Jahrhundert’, Archiv für österreichische Geschichte, 110, no. 2 (1926), pp. 557–58. I have been unable to substantiate Hofmann’s claim, because he does not mention a source at this point. In addition, many of his sources were lost in 1927 in the fire of the Justice Palace.

74 Appeal of the dyers of Austria below the Enns to the Emperor, 26 November 1781, Österreichisches Staatsarchiv FHKH NHK Kommerz OÖ NÖ 340, Fasz. 103 in genere 1756–1813 (Schön- und Schwarzfärberei).

75 Augsburger Tagblatt, 333, 5 December 1831, p. 1416.

Additional information

Jutta Wimmler is a historian at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany. With Klaus Weber, she has co-directed the research project ‘The Globalized Periphery: Atlantic Commerce, Socioeconomic and Cultural Change in Central Europe, 1680–1850’, funded by the German Research Foundation, 2015–2018. She is the author of The Sun King’s Atlantic: Drugs, Demons and Dyestuffs in the Atlantic World, 1640–1730, published by Brill in 2017.