Baltimore and the French Atlantic: Empires, Commerce, and Identity in a Revolutionary Age, 1783–1798

Abstract

In the aftermath of American independence, what kind of commercial relationships could exist between the French colonial empire and its new ally in the Americas — the United States? This question breaks away from traditional diplomatic history, which tends to regard the US and France as the nation-states they would become in the nineteenth century. Indeed, analysis of the connections between these revolutionary countries has almost always been presented within national frameworks. The US, however, was a vulnerable state entangled with European rivalries in the Caribbean, the economic engine of the time, in which French stakes were particularly high. After 1763 the French Empire mattered mostly thanks to the economic power of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), whose sugar and coffee production led the world. But Saint-Domingue was no isolated colony. It was part and parcel of a truly French imperial project involving different areas, including the North American continent. In this perspective, what could be the interaction between the US, which was emerging as a postcolonial independent state, and a colonial empire centred around the Caribbean?1