Antebellum Jefferson, Texas: Everyday Life in an East Texas Town

18. Commodity Markets

241 Much of the agricultural produce emanating from Jefferson’s market area passed through receiving and forwarding merchants for sale in New Orleans. However, a substantial portion of this produce was sold in Jefferson through commodity markets, which were the activities associated with the selling and buying of specific commodity types. The major commodity types that were purchased in Jefferson were cotton and hides. The available “Price Current” columns add pelts and wool. However, it is evident from merchant advertisements indicating cash purchases that all of the commodity types produced in Jefferson’s market area were sold in Jefferson, including cotton, hides, cattle, pelts, wool, skins, furs, beeswax, tallow, bois d’arc seed, honey, and snakeroot. Speculation was integral to most commodity market activities because buyers were guessing as to the price that various commodities could obtain at the next point of sale. The speculator hoped to realize a profit by the purchase of a commodity below the price that it would obtain when it was resold, taking interim handling and transport costs into account. Sellers risked selling lower than they might obtain later at another place; the incentive was to have money in hand sooner. Buyer decisions were reached in the context of intense competition from other buyers, which tended to move prices upward, and in ignorance of the prices that were currently being obtained at downstream points of sale—a problem that could only be resolved by the telegraph, which was not available in Jefferson before the war. 18. CommoDity marKets 242 Antebellum Jefferson, Texas Although commodity markets were not businesses, they joined the wholesaling operations and the receiving, forwarding, and commission operations as key features in the commercial life of the town. The unusualness of these markets is again indicated by the “Price Current ” columns that appeared in area newspapers, which indicate the existence of such activities only in Jefferson, Shreveport, and New Orleans . The only information on Jefferson’s commodity markets is for cotton and hides (and related commodities such as pelts). Robert Loughery visited Jefferson in 1850 and reports in the June 20 Texas Republican that “speculation in beef cattle has almost become a mania.” Loughery’s comment indicates that there was a market for cattle, that this was a speculative market, and that competitive bidding occurred on the streets of Jefferson. This was in addition to whatever cattle were sent to Jefferson with the intent of placing them on steamboats for sale in New Orleans. The street market for cattle in Jefferson was composed of speculators who purchased cattle in Jefferson for resale in New Orleans, hopefully at a higher price. This was also in addition to whatever cattle were sent to the meatpacking facilities in Jefferson. Meatpackers needed a steady supply and therefore operated on the basis of contracts for delivery of specific quantities at specific times and at a set price. As with the other commodity types, the flow of cattle through Jefferson was much larger than the volume of sales in the cattle market. Cotton Market A cotton market existed wherever there was a concentration of transactions in which cotton was sold. Sales did not necessarily involve cash transactions. Change of ownership in the Jefferson cotton market involved cash transactions, but also barter transactions in which cotton was exchanged in whole or in part for merchandise (farm and plantation supplies). Sales of cotton tended to concentrate in places where a large volume of cotton was transferred from one transport mode to another . This tendency is readily observable in the proliferation of cotton markets after the Civil War in places like Marshall that were serviced by rails. However, before the Civil War competitors to Jefferson’s cotton market were found only in Shreveport and New Orleans. 243 Commodity Markets Cotton entered the Jefferson market directly from producers and indirectly from merchants in Jefferson’s market area. Interior merchants purchased cotton in small amounts speculatively and accepted cotton from producers as barter in exchange for merchandise and in payment of debts owed by producers from credit transactions. The flow of cotton through Jefferson prior to the Civil War was generally through receiving and forwarding merchants for sale in New Orleans, with these merchants usually providing cash and merchandise advances on cotton left for shipment. An indeterminate, but obviously significant, portion of this flow was sold on the streets and in the warehouses of Jefferson, usually with the intent of resale in...