The Swedish East India trade and international markets: Re-exports of teas, 1731–1813

Abstract

The Swedish East India Company (SEIC) has been traditionally seen as nothing but a peculiar and exotic adventure in Sweden's eighteenth-century history. Hence, only limited attention has been paid to the SEIC's international role, its relationship with other chartered companies, and to the development of international markets for colonial goods. The paper focuses on this unexplored chapter in the company's history. More specifically, it looks into the SEIC's re-exports of Chinese commodities to Western European markets. Although the Swedish operation was limited compared to that of the other East India companies, the SEIC was an important tea trader on the world markets. The major part of the tea imports was re-exported through merchant networks to other European countries, especially to the Austrian Netherlands and HoIland. Through illicit trade, part of the SEIC's tea went to Great Britain. The paper shows in detail how the transactions between Gothenburg, Ostend, Gent and Antwerp were organized. The examples are mainly drawn from the business correspondence of the Flemish merchants.

Swedish East India trade in a value-added analysis, c. 1730–1800

“…It has stressed the role of illegal tea market in Great Britain as the main destination of the SEIC's cargoes of tea. As the re-exports to Britain were smuggled there are no official data on the commodity flows, yet we have enough indirect evidence in correspondence (Müller, 2003), and even in newspapers, parliamentary papers and other records (Cole, 1958;Janes, 2016Janes, , 2020. Hanna Hodacs' research (2016), also pointed out the character of the SEIC as an important enterprise, and in many ways equal to other chartered companies, in organising trade between Europe and Asia, in silks and tea.…”

“…Most recent research into the history of the SEIC has provided an increasingly complex picture of the company's business and its role in the Euro-Asian trade (Hodacs, 2016;Hodacs & Müller, 2015;Müller, 2003Müller, , 2011Müller, , 2016Müller, , 2018. It has stressed the role of illegal tea market in Great Britain as the main destination of the SEIC's cargoes of tea.…”

“…Previous research has shown that the majority of the goods sold at the SEIC auctions were purchased by Swedish (or naturalised Swedish) merchants, who later re-exported the goods (Askenfelt, 2017, pp. 68-71;Hodacs & Müller, 2015;Müller, 2003).…”

“…That smuggling to Britain was a common practice is, however, well-known (Cole, 1958;Kent, 1973, pp. 112-129;Müller, 2003Müller, , 2018Mackillop, 2015;Janes, 2016Janes, , 2020. We would therefore not necessarily trust the geographical disaggregation of the Swedish official statistics regarding re-exported Asian goods (Nyström, 1883), as re-exports that officially were reported to be destined for one marketsay the Netherlandsvery well might have been smuggled to the British market.…”