El comercio entre Chile y el Puerto de Filadelfia: Estudio comparado binacional (review)

This book is a study of trade between Chile and Philadelphia during the decades surrounding Chilean independence. It is organized into chapters dealing with commerce between Chile and the United States in the period before independence (1778-1818), a description of the ports and the background to the trade, the export trade from Chile to Philadelphia, this trade as it appeared in the customs records of Valparáiso, Coquimbo, Huasco, and Copiapó, and finally, a comparative analysis of the trade between the Republic and Philadelphia. It is based on extensive (and obviously intensive) research in the customs records of Philadelphia in the National Archives in Washington and the aduana records in the Archivo Nacional de Chile. From this, the author hoped to establish the quantities of various branches of commerce.

She succeeds in doing this, and while it must be said that there are few surprises in her findings, it is useful to have such a detailed examination of this commerce. As she says, it is very much a microhistory. She has extracted the records of some 17 ships that arrived in Philadelphia from Chile, and of 25 that sailed in the other direction. And in fact, all sailed between 1818 and 1843—no ships having apparently made the voyage in either direction in the last seven years considered in the study—so the period under study is actually one of 25 years.

The meat of the work lies in the discussion of the cargoes. Here, the concentration is on exports from Chile, not the United States, which get only a cursory mention (doubtless because they tell little in particular about the import-export trade). Mentioned in cargoes from the United States are flour, shoes, books, medicines, furniture, liquors, notions, and so on, which might have come from anywhere (and may have come from outside the United States, considering that country's re-export trade).

Where the United States does come into its own is as the organizers and in the organization of the trade. Méndez presents a list of some one hundred persons engaged in the trade, of whom only one was Chilean: Manuel Carvallo, who was Chile's minister in Washington from 1833 to 1835. He exported silver, which may have been for his own support. The rest were either North American or European; of them, the largest trader was la casa Alsop. This firm sent seven cargoes between 1828 and 1841, with a total value of $341,071.00. Another large firm was Hollenshead Platt, Co., which sent a quarter of a million dollars worth of goods in several ships in 1836 and 1837. Together these two merchant houses controlled some 34 percent of Chile's exports to Philadelphia.

Méndez clearly shows the principal Chilean exports to Philadelphia: copper, silver, gold, and money. Together, these made up 82.3 percent of goods, followed distantly by skins, hides, especies (seeds, exotic plants), and "various." Obviously, exporters from Chile knew their market and concentrated on universal staples (such as copper) or niche items. Entry into the burgeoning North Atlantic market (one of the book's themes) was done from Chile's strengths.

In perhaps the most original section of the book, the author establishes some figures for contraband in both copper and precious metals. Her examination of the customs records for both Chile and Philadelphia enables her to compare declared outward cargoes and declared inward ones. It has always been known that there was large-scale contraband involved in the commerce of early independent Chile. Now we have numbers, and they are considerable: the export tax on copper of course encouraged the practice. Interestingly, there was also smuggling into the United States; the customs service there was no more immaculate...