TheBartlamBlog: July 2014

(Part of Master's Thesis work on Charleston Ceramics)

Ceramics imported into Charleston were heavily influenced by the fluctuations in other imported and exported goods. While earthenwares and porcelains might have captured a handsome price on the retail market, they were not necessarily a primary import to Charleston in the 18th century. The weight of ceramics was high when compared to the risk and cost of shipping, considering the level of breakage which might occur on any given voyage. In addition to the loss of income from spoiled cargoes, owners had to pay high rates of insurance, raising the cost further. In 1764, merchant Henry Laurens lost 10 casks of earthenware and another ten casks of "Yellow ware" due to breakage during shipping;[1] these were then sold for £4 to £5 - far below market value for the wares.

Shipments of ceramics were infrequently listed in ship’s manifests or customs records, and even then the details were minimal. One cargo might include “18 crates of earthenware,” or “21 baskets of earthenware.” In a sampling taken from January 1763 to December 1764, only 8 of the 120 entries contained any reference to ceramics and of these, only two revealed any significant detail, those being 8 dozen milk pans from the Fair Lady[2] and 6 chamber pots shipped on the Betsey.[3] Yet, despite this lack of evidence for ceramics in import records, information about the ceramics market can be gleaned from the records, and data might be inferred from the details of trade for other commodities traveling between Charleston, Europe, and the West Indies.

Shipping lists for major imports and exports (potentially those items for which duties would be collected) exist for the port of Charleston for much of the eighteenth century. Details of weight, unit and price can be found in naval lists and customs records. In a landmark study of Charleston port statistics completed in 1984, Converse Clowse analyzed 50 years of these import and export records to the southern port, attempting to synthesize them into a comprehensible and useful set of data .[4] Viewed as a whole, the numbers may seem inconclusive; but when broken down by commodity, we see a market driven by the tension between the need to sell exported goods and the desire to maintain a steady supply of British good to the colonies. This supply and demand tug-of-war influenced Charleston style by affecting the choice of ports, the choice of ships and the rhythm of shipping between the colonies, England, and the West Indies.

England’s Commercial Core

Britain’s capitol city of London captured a large part of the Charleston export trade in the 1760s, accepting an average of 20-30% of British rice shipments.[5] This was due in part to the increasing commercial and banking network developing in London during the latter half of the eighteenth century. As a political center of the American colonies before the Revolution, London attracted those interested in maintaining close ties to the English economy, including merchants, law makers, and scholars, all of whom stood to benefit from London’s growth. Charleston’s links with London were even more direct, as hundreds of Charleston sons and daughters were sent across the Atlantic to obtain their education. The letters of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and Henry Laurens describe effect that this had on the family relationships and often on the social financial status of the family. The children kept their families and friends up to date with news and market information, and when they returned to Charleston, they brought the news of the au courant back to the Low Country, making Charleston more "British" than many of her northern neighbors.

This economic development did not escape the scrutiny of England’s potters, who began to move their trade from Bristol to London after 1770. Fashionable showrooms provided meeting places for the city’s upper class, and ensured a steady market for the enterprising potter/merchant. A new system of canals and roads, encouraged by Wedgwood and other potters in Staffordshire, brought English ceramics to the doorsteps of England’s elite, while simultaneously improving the transportation of goods to the West Indies and American colonies.

London's status as a commercial center was challenged by the western trade center of Bristol. Identified by Sellars as one of the primary centers of trade with South Carolina before the Revolution, fully one third of Bristol’s ships sailing before 1765 came to Charleston either directly, or through southern Spanish ports of Teneriffe or Cadiz, West African trade centers, or fishing ports of the northeast colonies.[6] In addition to the finished goods being shipped from England, ships from Bristol brought..... Bristol was also strategically located to capture a majority of the pottery exports prior to 1770.[7] Bristol merchants furnished ceramics to a large market; Wedgwood felt it was lucrative enough to strike up a business relationship with merchant Thomas Bentley of Bristol in 1764, and Henry Laurens kept his hand in the Bristol market well into the 1770s.

Despite the economic positioning between London and Bristol, ships from Charleston found their way to other British and Continental ports as well. The small town of Cowes, located on the Isle of Wight near Portsmouth, was the relay point for the market in northern Europe.[8] “To Cowes and a Market” was a familiar phrase as nearly 60,000 barrels of rice and more than 5000 pounds of indigo were funneled through the English port from Charleston between 1760 and 1767.[9]

The western port town of Liverpool brought a unique market to Charleston during this period. From 1762 to 1763, Liverpool was home port to more than 60% of the ships transporting slaves to Charleston, compared to only 37% in 1758 to 1760 and 0% in 1766. Logically, they also conducted a small portion of the trade in rum and sugar to Charleston, and were responsible for a token shipment of bread and flour in the late 1750s. China wares from “Liverpule” were listed in shipments and inventories throughout the 1760s, indicating that ships were also arriving from Liverpool with ceramics aboard.

Dramatic fluctuations in commodities were the result of shift in trade policy as Britain and the colonies began to vie for greater control of the export market. The volatility of the political and economic relations between England and her colonies provided the impetus for colonial merchants to find alternatives for their good, both imports and exports. Whereas Charleston merchants were generally content to receive goods from England, there was a gradual increase in intra-colonial trade throughout the mid eighteenth century, particularly with respect to grain products.[10] Bread, flour, corn, rum, molasses, etc. were shipped from Boston, Philadelphia and New York in great quantities. With the increase in imports from the north, locally made ceramic wares (primarily coarse earthenwares) began to infiltrate the ceramics market in Charleston during the latter half of the 1700s. Archaeological samplings from the Judicial Center site reveal black-glazed earthenwares which may have originated from the Boston (Charlestown) area in the 1760s.

Charleston and the West Indies

While the relations between Charleston and England accounted for the majority of the export trade from Charleston, the islands of the West Indies also enjoyed a favorable trade with the southern port. Cast from a West Indian mold in the seventeenth century, Charleston never forgot her social and economic roots, and maintained strong ties with her island neighbors to the southeast.

The ties between the West Indies and Charleston formed the warp of an intricate system of trade, commerce, and familial relations which dictated the very essence of Charleston style and culture throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From its early settlement, Charleston was tied inextricably with the West Indies, having been born of the plantation culture on islands like Barbados, Antigua, or Jamaica. These relationships were formed during the 1600s, when experienced planters from the Indies were recruited to establish Low Country plantations. These relations were continued in the early part of the eighteenth century, when island plantation families sent sons and daughters to the Low Country to establish themselves as planters and merchants in the growing Carolina market. Names like Middleton, Whaley, Perry and Lucas were found in both Charleston and the West Indies,[11] emphasizing the strength of the economic and social ties between the two colonial centers. The new Carolinians are said to have exhibited cultural patterns more like the Caribbean colonies than northern counterparts.[12] British traders also settled in Charleston, lending ties to the families of Nathaniel Russell, Benjamin Smith, and the Savages.

These familial relations translated into business for the colonies, as goods were shipped between Charleston and the West Indies, and business partners established while in the Caribbean were extended to the new Carolina trade. An excellent example can be seen in the relationship established by Charleston ship owners and merchants Thomas and William Savage, who co-owned the brigantine “Savage” with William Dickenson and John Young from Bermuda.[13] Their 1764 cargo included earthenware, shoes, mirrors, haberdashery - finished goods from Britain being imported to Charleston via Bermuda. In addition to the British trade through the Indies, the rising sugar trade, including the shipment of slaves, was an integral part of the Charleston-Indies connection as countless men, women, and children were transported to the plantations in the Low Country and the islands of the Caribbean, and sugar was exported to sites in Europe and the northern colonies.

Charleston’s Main Crops

When early settlers to the Low Country were experimenting with crops for export, they realized that they would have to select those staples which could not be grown in England to avoid competing with their benefactors.[14] Crops like grapes, olives, indigo and oranges were tried, but only a few withstood the sub-tropical growing season of the South.[15]

Of the items attempted in Charleston, rice became the money crop for many South Carolina planters after 1705. The Low Country was an excellent environment for rice production, equipped as it was with seemingly unlimited supplies of water, excellent transportation, and an easily obtainable source of manpower. It was a staple crop which could be shipped with few problems, and it did not compete with the British export trade.[16] By the second half of the 18th century rice commanded the greatest share of the market, delivering over 35,000 barrels a year to Great Britain and the West Indies.[17] It is worth noting, however, that not all barrels of Carolina rice went to the commercial center of London (Table 1). While London and Bristol were the largest importers of rice until 1760, other British towns pulled their share of Charleston exports as well. Smaller ports which drew their share of the exports included Gosport, Portsmouth and Poole in southern England, Glasgow to the north, and Liverpool to the west. In 1763 it was the southern port of Cowes which dominated the market with almost 28,000 barrels of rice.

In the previous year, the market leader was not in Britain, but the West Indies. Between 1760 and 1762, West Indian rice imports went from 9500 barrels to 23000 barrels. As a comparison, corn exports to the Indies increased from 9000 in 1761 to 41500 in 1762. It is possible that with the dramatic increase in the Liverpool slave trade, island populations grew, requiring larger quantities of staple crops were needed to support them. Carolina rice was supplied to plantations in the West Indies, along with other items such as staves, tar, and pitch. Items such as salt, corn, bread, etc. were imported to Charleston from other ports, and were reshipped to the islands. This increased traffic to the Indies continued throughout the 1760s.

The second largest export from Charleston during pre-Revolutionary Charleston was indigo. This dye plant, which was grown on Low Country plantations, produced a blue dye which could be extracted then shipped to ports throughout Europe for use in manufacturing cloth and other goods. Nearly 1700 pounds of indigo were shipped in the 1760s.

The production of indigo was labor intensive, with [several hundred] pounds of indigo producing only ounces of dye. The indigo season could be dovetailed with other crops, so it was possible for plantations to grow two different crops. Unfortunately, like many other crops, indigo extracted nutrients from the soil, leaving it unfit for replanting after a few seasons. Planters had to shift fields repeatedly, leaving the fallow field to nature.

The exportation of indigo was not always dependable because of competition with other European and Asian crops. In the Caribbean, Montserrat was one of the top exporters, along with ........ As production of cloth increased, the market for dyes, especially indigo, grew. The trade finally dropped off by the 1790s, and was no longer viable after the mid 1800s.

Charleston's other exports included deerskins, tar and pitch, and naval stores, some of which were shipped in from Georgia and North Carolina. Before indigo, deerskins ranked 2^nd in exports. This trade in skins was much dependent upon relations with the Native American residents, which fluctuated during the 1760s as inter-tribal alliances threatened trade relations.

The Impact of Trade on the Ceramics Market

While documentary evidence divulges little evidence of a direct link between Atlantic trade and the styles of imported wares, it is clear that certain relationships exist between the pattern of trade and the ceramics market in 1760s Charleston. The most obvious influence is the effect of trade on the available trade credit or cash available for the purchase of the finer imported wares. Charleston’s economic system produced a class of consumer who could well afford the imported Chinese porcelain, creamware, or salt-glazed stoneware which found its way into Charleston’s harbors. This disposable income created a market which might not have existed in areas of more repressed economies.

The dependence of Charleston upon the English market required that the importation of ceramic wares would be limited to those which were accessible to the English consumer. While the best ceramics may not have been shipped to the colonies first, they did eventually arrive, and were eagerly purchased by the colonial consumers. When trade patterns shifted from London to Bristol to Liverpool, the ceramics market flexed as well, as evidenced by probate listings of Liverpool china and the archaeological remains of Bristol delftwares.

Relations with the West Indies may also have influenced the types of ceramics found in Charleston. Letters from Wedgwood indicate that certain types of wares, the green and gold glazed earthenwares, were shipped to the Indies when their popularity had waned in England and on the Continent. These wares are found in Charleston probate inventories and archaeological excavations, while they are not as prevalent in northeastern colonies.[18]

[1]George C. Rogers, Papers of Henry Laurens. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.

[2]January 28, 1763. Fair Lady Schooner. Shipping Lists p. 122 British Public Records Office

[3]Shipping Lists p. 124

[4]Converse Clowse, Measuring Charleston’s Overseas Commerce, 1717-1767. Statistics from the Port’s Naval Lists. (-----: University Press of America). p.

[5]Clowse 59, 70.

[6] Walter Minchinton, “Richard Champion, Nicholas Pocock and the Carolina Trade,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 65:87-97.

[7] Sellars 1934

[8]Laurens, Papers.

[9]Clowse, 59, 70.

[10] Clowse, 44-45.

[11] Sellars 4-5.

[12] Jack P. Green, Colonial Carolina and the Caribbean Connection, South Carolina Historical Magazine 88 (1989):192-210.

[13] Ship manifests

[14] Edgar, Sellers

[15] Edgar p. 132-133

[16] Leila Sellars, Charleston Business on the Eve of the Revolution.

[17]Sellers

[18] Personal communication, Martha Pinello, archaeologist, Strawbery Banke Museum.

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