Risk, kinship and personal relationships in late eighteenth-century West Indian trade: The commercial network of Tobin & Pinney

Abstract

Which strategies enabled merchants to sustain commercial expansion in the risky context of Atlantic trade? This study evaluates the role of kinship and long-term relationships as solutions to the problems posed by long-distance trade, when there is a common national and legal framework. Tobin & Pinney did not rely much on family connections to develop and support their operations. As former planters themselves, they took advantage of the contacts and ‘friendships’ they had established with planters and agents in Nevis before setting up in the commission trade in Bristol, and their success was based on repeated interaction and their former proximity to the Nevis planter class. This risk reduction strategy however limited the partners' ability to expand their business beyond Nevis.

Keywords:

• business networks
• long-distance trade
• eighteenth-century West Indian merchants
• kinship
• trust

Acknowledgements

Much of the research for this article was conducted for the author's ESRC-funded doctoral dissertation, entitled Commercial organization in the late eighteenth century Atlantic world: A comparative analysis of the British and French West Indian trades (LSE, 2009). Earlier versions of this article were presented at seminars held at the London School of Economics and Political Science. The author would like to thank participants at these events for their comments, and her funding body for support. She is also grateful to Dr Patrick Wallis, Professor Kenneth Morgan, and two anonymous referees for their criticism and advice made on an earlier draft of this article.

Notes

 1. John Pinney to Chard, 6 February 1765, John Pinney Letterbook 3, Bristol University Library (hereafter BUL). John Pinney's main creditors in the 1760s were the London factors Coleman and Lucas.

 2. The strength of a tie is defined by the ‘the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy …, and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie’ (Granovetter, 1973, p. 1361).

 3. It is problematic to apply the term ‘friendship’ to the interaction between commercial actors not related by blood, as using today's language to describe past realities can mask significant discrepancies (Geertz, 1973, pp. 5–7). This informs the author's decision to refer to long-term, personal relationships instead.

 4. The strength of ties cannot be readily measured by the historian, who often has incomplete data. In this case, we only have information about the node Tobin & Pinney, and the relationships between the other members of the network are not known, which prevents the application of visual analytics. This methodology for visualising networks has recently attracted attention, but it only has analytical potential, when information on related members of the network is available (Haggerty & Haggerty, 2010).

 5. The evidence presented here stems from the commercial correspondence left by the firm of Tobin & Pinney, and from John Pinney's private letterbooks. These sources, kept at Special Collections, Bristol University Library, enable us to reconstitute the firm's network and John Pinney's private network over a period of 20 years. The partners were in the habit of sending out yearly balances to their clients, usually in May. The availability of financial information means that we can also examine the firm's credit network.

 6. Although a 20-year period may seem relatively short, it is worth pointing out that most early modern firms had a short life span (Grassby, 2000, p. 361). The survival of the Tobin & Pinney firm over several generations is however not out of line with the Bristol West Indian commercial elite of the time (Morgan, 2007, p. 14).

 7. The occupations of the members of Tobin & Pinney's network were derived from the correspondence itself, and determined using the destination of the letters, and their contents, which usually indicated what the correspondent's business relationship with the firm was. In order to separate the planters who acted as attorneys for the firm from the rest of the planters, I also used evidence from Pares' monograph, A West India Fortune (1950, pp. 142–146). The main players in the networks were the planters, who owned land in the West Indies. When these planters were ‘absentee owners’ and resided in Britain, they employed attorneys, who acted as their legal and managerial representatives in the West Indies. To the financial sector belonged the firm's bankers and insurers. I have classified the commission firms based in the West Indies, involved in the export and import trades as West Indian firms. The British and Irish factoring firms were firms, which, like Tobin and Tobin, were involved in the commission business with the West Indies. The British and Irish suppliers were the firms, which provided Tobin & Pinney with the goods required for the export trade. The planters' relatives were the planters' relatives who lived off the West Indian estates' revenues. Under the category other, we find the captains, recipients of planters' bills of exchange, lawyers and so forth who also formed part of the network.

 8. For a recent discussion of absentee ownership, see Higman (2005) and Burnard (2004).

 9. The other categories were dominated by a few relationships, including the firm's London bankers, successively Nathaniel Martin, Ladbroke, Rawlinson & Co. and Williams, Son & Co. insurer Warren and factor B. & T. Boddingtons & Co.

10. Tobin & Pinney to Berkeley, 30 July 1796, Tobin & Pinney Letterbook 40, BUL. The role of these representatives deserves further attention, as these men often provided third-party mediation in disputes between planters and factors. This informal resolution of conflict provided an alternative to familial modes of arbitrage and more formal enforcement mechanisms such as legal procedures.

11. Former apprentices or clerks could also sometimes act as junior partners in West Indian firms.

12. Tobin & Pinney to Galpine, 29 January 1796, Tobin & Pinney Letterbook 39, BUL. For more on this, see Hunt (1986, chapter 2).

13. Comparatively, St Kitts has an area of 65 square miles, Barbados 166 and Jamaica 4244.

14. John Pinney Letterbooks 4, 5 & 6, BUL.

15. Pinney & Tobin to Woodley, 15 November 1787, Pinney & Tobin Letterbook 37, BUL.

16. Pinney & Tobin to John Tyson, 4 September 1786, Pinney & Tobin Letterbook 37, BUL.

17. Pinney & Tobin to T. Cassin, 1 May 1789, Pinney & Tobin Letterbook 37, BUL.

18. Based on the King's Bench court records, kept at the Nevis courthouse, for the period 1778–1803.

19. The level of indebtedness of Tobin & Pinney's clients was wide-ranging: four planters owed more than £1000. Yet, the recourse to legal action was not determined by the level of debt, as substantial debts tended to be secured by mortgages and other formal instruments.

20. On the risks posed by hurricanes, see Mulcahy (2004, pp. 635–663).

21. Tobin, Pinney & Tobin to Mrs McEvoy, 18 October 1800, Tobin, Pinney & Tobin Letterbook 40, BUL.

22. Pinney & Tobin to Daniel George Webbe, 10 February 1789, Pinney & Tobin Letterbook 37, BUL; the partners' emphasis.

23. Pares (1950, p. 243) notes that John Pinney did not provide any collateral security after 1774.

24. The location of the one of the regular clients' estate is unknown.

25. Circular letters, 25 October 1784, 15 October 1785, Pinney & Tobin Letterbook 37, BUL.

26. Instructions to Captain Maies, 20 January 1787, Pinney & Tobin Letterbook 37, BUL.

27. Pinney & Tobin to Charles Hutton, 1 August 1786, Tobin & Pinney Letterbook 37, BUL; Pinney & Tobin to J. Browne, 14 August 1786, Tobin & Pinney Letterbook 37, BUL.

28. Pinney & Tobin to Whitehall, 2 October 1784, Pinney & Tobin Letterbook 37, BUL; Tobin & Pinney to Keyliger, 24 October 1795,Tobin & Pinney Letterbook 39, BUL.

29. These are John Hall from Antigua, Mrs Jeffery and John Matthew in Nevis.

30. Tobin, Pinney & Tobin to Colhoun, 9 June 1796, Tobin, Pinney & Tobin Letterbook 40, BUL.

31. Tobin, Pinney & Tobin to Lowman, 30 November 1796, Tobin, Pinney & Tobin Letterbook 40, BUL.

32. Tobin & Pinney to Lynch, 20 November 1789, Tobin & Pinney Letterbook 38, BUL.

33. Tobin & Pinney to Lynch, 21 December 1789, Tobin & Pinney Letterbook 38, BUL.

34. Tobin & Pinney to James Tobin, 10 June 1793, Tobin & Pinney Letterbook 38, BUL.