Abstract

In the spring of 1727 members of Christ Church in Boston's North End received word that British logwood merchants residing along the Bay of Honduras intended to contribute over one hundred tons of costly dyewood to the newly constructed church. Although their settlements on the periphery of the Spanish American empire were not official English colonies, and they traded with all nations, British logwood cutters—known as Baymen—maintained strong ties to the British Empire, and this gift embedded them in the inner workings of Christ Church. This act of patronage by a small group of logwood merchants enhanced the Baymen's collective commercial reputation and provided an example of benevolence worthy of emulation, marking them as participants in a trans-Atlantic network of Anglicans who financially supported needy New England churches. As a gesture of thanks, the church furnished a prominently located double pew for these merchants' exclusive use. The Baymen's pew was a fixture at Christ Church for over thirty years, during which time church vestrymen actively solicited and procured logwood from the Bay of Honduras, and Baymen participated in religious life and governance at Christ Church. This article places the story of the Baymen's pew and larger trade in logwood within the imperial rivalries and voluntary associations of religion and commerce that characterized the mid-eighteenth-century Atlantic.

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