The French Atlantic and the Dutch, Late Seventeeth-Late Eighteenth Century

Abstract

This chapter deals exclusively with French colonial trade, the leading growth sector for the country in the eighteenth century. The author analyzes the role played by Dutch merchants and the United Provinces in the emergence, consolidation and functioning of this French colonial trade in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Bordeaux's shipowners also converted their businesses to the colonial trade, successfully competing with the aforementioned Atlantic ports, which proved more profitable than the Newfoundland fisheries. Bordeaux have become the most important French port for colonial trade. Whereas Dutch capital and insurance services were decisive for the West Indian trade in this phase, within a generation French merchants in Bordeaux were able to send expeditions to the West Indies using their own financial resources. Foreign participation, continued to be of great importance in Bordeaux, as it was in other major French ports. Keywords: Atlantic ports; Bordeaux; Dutch merchants; French colonial trade; United Provinces