Atlantic Ports and the First Globalisation c. 1850-1930

Kenneth A. Loparo, Miguel Suárez Bosa

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137327987
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Modern History
• Index: History

Port cities were the means through which cultural and economic exchange took place between continental societies and the maritime world. In examining the ports of Brazil, the Caribbean and West Africa, this volume will provide fresh insight into the meaning of the 'First Globalisation'.

1

Atlantic Ports: An Interpretative Model

Miguel Suárez Bosa

1 Port Reforms and Globalisation

Ports play an essential role in maritime transport, which, in turn, is a key element for the economy (Ville, 1990). This can be seen in a significant number of ports located on the African and American coasts and on Atlantic islands. The expansion of a port requires sufficient resources to mobilise assets and production factors, such as raw materials, goods or people. These ports were built in different countries to meet the needs of their developing economies and to enhance their profits.

As in the cases studied, the network of maritime routes connecting Europe, Africa and America was used by many vessels belonging to the major maritime transport companies. On the one hand, we can find African continental coastal ports, such as Casablanca in Morocco, Dakar in Senegal and Lagos in Nigeria, as well as those on the Macaronesian African islands (the Canary Islands and Cape Verde); and, on the other hand, South American ports (Santos and San Salvador in Brazil, La Guaira in Venezuela) and the Caribbean port of Havana. This book will try to clarify the features of these ports, most of which are located on the periphery of the capitalist world-economy of the time.

Many Atlantic ports have already been analysed by different schools of thought and numerous studies have been conducted on various topics, yet few studies have examined the areas indicated and the specific features of these particular ports in depth. In carrying out of this analysis we have mainly, but not exclusively, taken into account the following parameters: port infrastructure and its evolution, each port’s specific functions and features, institutions, administration and port activity. Port management acts as the thread that links the analysis of the different ports.

The aim of this book is to enhance our knowledge of African and Latin American ports, particularly during the period between the mid-nineteenth century and the first third of the twentieth century, the so-called First Globalisation. Generally speaking, this process featured the free circulation of goods, services and production factors (labour and capital), although both ideas and culture should also be borne in mind as indicators of globalisation. Although this process covered the whole of the planet, the phenomenon presented some distinctive characteristics in the geographic area studied here, that is, the Mid-South Atlantic. For this reason, we use the term ‘Global South’ in a more conceptual than strictly geographical sense, as the liberalising measures taken in the nineteenth century gave rise to unequal trade relations, dependence, acculturation and political dominance, all of which are aspects that can be associated with this process of globalisation and imperialist expansion.

In this framework, transport infrastructure played a key role providing crucial assets for expansion and the opening up of new markets. The ‘tools of the Empire’ (Headrick, 1989) can clearly be identified with three aspects: railways, steam vessels and the telegraph. Steam ships, which used ports, were essential in the imperial expansionist policies in Western Africa and Latina America, as they spearheaded the penetration of the capitalist system into the inland areas of the continent (Hopkins, 1988). At the same time, the main railways were built in the areas surrounding the ports, thereby enabling raw materials to be exported: the phosphates from Khouribga and cereal crops from Chaouia were shipped through Casablanca; Dakar was the embarkation point for peanut production – especially from the 1930s onwards – and constituted the last stop on the current Mali line; the coffee grown in Sao Paulo was shipped through Santos; Venezuela’s cacao and coffee through La Guaira; Nigeria’s precious wood and palm oil, through Lagos; and, finally, Havana was the major export port for Cuban sugar.

So, clearly, some of the ports studied played a leading role in the export of their countries’ products. Likewise, the bananas and tomatoes produced in the Canary Islands were shipped to England and other European countries, as return freight, on the boats that brought coal from the English mines to supply vessels covering the ocean routes. Meanwhile, the telegraph made communication between the different ports much easier, thereby bringing transaction costs down.

Thus, the ports channelled hinterland export products and helped to make farming activities more dynamic, acting as a tool in the extraction of raw material in exchange for an increased dependence on imported foodstuffs, for example. In some cases, the ports specialised in the import of metropolitan manufactured goods such as cotton textiles, tools, alcohol, flour, construction material, machinery and others. Other specialised fields included the massive export of wood, gum Arabic, rubber, textile fibres, peanuts and other colonial commodities whose market value was very low in comparison with the volume exported and, above all, with the value of goods imported through the same port.

The new market drove forward the two major port reforms that have taken place from the mid-nineteenth century to date. This process began when the old ports had to be transformed and some others built to meet the new demands. This was the origin of the first reform that endeavoured to adapt ports to the new needs created as a consequence of the changes generated by the use of steamboats, larger vessels and higher vessel speeds. The second reform started in the 1960s–70s with the birth of containers and other novelties such as the ro-ro system or forklift trucks, which demanded new infrastructure. However, some other factors such as the triumph of neoliberalism in the 1980s and the ensuing privatisation policies should also be taken into consideration, although in this text we will focus only on the first batch of reforms.

A multidisciplinary approach could be used to study these ports. Evolutionary economics provide us with concepts such as the technological path and path dependence that help us to understand development and technological change (Rosenberg, 1992) as an internal variation of the economy with its own distinguishable dynamics, rather than something the value of which is determined solely by the resources and relative prices generated in the markets. Institutional and economic theory complements anthropology and sociology in the analysis of people working in ports.

Institutional theory enables us to clarify the limits between the private and public management of port infrastructure because this economic activity, linked to a social and cultural context, takes place in a changeable but specific institutional and legal framework (North, 1990; Temin, 1997; David, 1985). This framework may also refer to established laws and agreements regarding individual and group performances. This perspective refers to the quantitative efficiency of institutions and their management styles, but it is also interesting to consider the theoretical contributions that highlight the way these institutions are shaped. For example, we should take path dependence into account, which is determined by the course of history rather than by rational and universal economic laws. This is the case with the maritime connection that links Atlantic island ports, Canary Islands and Cape Verde with America and Africa, just as the commercial routes had done during previous centuries.

Ports can act as transport exchange hubs, creating networks or chains in many cases. Modern European historiography has focused on the analysis of port systems and intercontinental networks. For this reason, concepts such as network, hierarchy and complementarities are essential if we are to understand the complex relations established between ports (Polònia, 2010). The concept of ‘hierarchy’ is relative as there are no unequivocal and universal hierarchies. In this case, we should define the variables that mark a port’s relative position in relation to others. The major task is to define what we are going to compare and how we are going to do so. We could consider the amount of trade and maritime transport but a specific port may have worked simultaneously on local and interregional levels, not serving only its country but also others. Within the network of ports there were also sometimes winning and losing ports (Martner Peyrelongue, 1999). Thus, for example, Las Palmas port became the leading island port of Macaronesia, Dakar replaced the other Senegalese ports, some of which were in fact more consolidated than Dakar, such as Saint Louis, while Casablanca quickly outran other Moroccan ports.

These networks were served by major shipping companies that controlled port activity, such as Blandy Brothers & Co., Chargeurs Reunis, Elder Dempster, Woermann Linie and the Compagnie Générale Trasantlantique, among others, who ‘often played a decisive role in colonial expansion policy’ (Miège, 1975, p. 5). They often reached collusive agreements in fixing freight prices, giving rise to monopolies arising from the agreements signed at maritime conferences. Thus, the West African Shipping Conference (1859) was made up of the English Elder Dempster company and the German Woermann Linie, who ope rated along the western coasts of the African continent. This system of agreements became the norm in transoceanic maritime transport, as we can see from the numerous conferences held, which included the China Conference (1879), those of South Africa (1886), North Braliz (1895) and River Plate and South Brazilia (1896) (Davies, 2000; Kirkaldy, 1919), among others.

However, this macro-level analysis may not take the internal study and the specificities of each port sufficiently into account. This work is framed within what is known as ‘Atlantic History’ (Armitage, 2002),¹ which ties in with the world system (Braudel, 1994; Wallerstein, 2006). Therefore, local or regional micro-level studies could be considered to be useful for determining the existence or not of port models. Furthermore, we should bear in mind the complementary elements that play a vital role in ensuring that the major ports maintain their position. In the period studied we can identify a broader network in the Atlantic, which links Europe with Africa and America through maritime connections (Kirkaldy, 1919; Zimmermann, 1983) as well as some other networks linking specific areas, such as that of the Northwest of Africa, which connects Casablanca-Dakar and Lagos ports and, at the same time, such ports with those of the Canary Islands and Cape Verde. On the other hand, Brazilian ports constitute another network while Havana, which is historically linked to Canary Islands’ ports, is now more focused on its connection with the Caribbean islands and the Gulf of Mexico.

2 Technological Change and Port Reform

The technological and socioeconomic changes that have taken place since the Industrial Revolution and the expansion of capitalism have entailed many profound transformations in navigation. The use of steam and of steel hulls, together with many other innovations, made the construction of larger vessels possible. These vessels needed adequate port infrastructure to berth, refuel, take on water or carry out urgent repair work as well as access agency services, insurance, shipping agency and other services. The growth in navigation had the following effects: (1) a considerable increase in the number of passengers and cargo volume (for this reason, larger port warehouses were required, leading to the specialisation of ports areas); (2) this revolution in maritime and ground transport required an improvement in port access and sufficient space to facilitate the reception and mobility of large vessels, conditioning the location of ground terminals, canals and rail networks; and (3) the creation of a continuous international transport network to ensure the permanent flow of goods and people, which led to the disadvantages in breaking bulk being reduced to a minimum. In the Mid-South Atlantic, this process took the shape of the construction or renovation of ports, aimed at ensuring they would act as strategic points of support for European fleets, as well as channelling the massive import and export of goods.

The technological changes that emerged from the Industrial Revolution enabled transport costs to be reduced, although to a somewhat lesser extent in maritime transport than in other areas: at the end of the nineteenth century, maritime transport costs had fallen to about a sixth of those recorded at the beginning of the century, while land-based transport costs fell by 90 per cent between 1800 and 1910 (Crafts and Venables, 2005, pp. 323–9). Likewise, as authors such as North (1958) and Harley (1988) point out, an annual fall of approximately 1.5 per cent in maritime transport costs was recorded up until 1913, giving rise to an overall drop of 45 percentage points (Finley and O’Rourke, 2005, pp. 35–7). However, it took time for these changes to become consolidated given that, in 1860, sailing ships still prevailed over steamships, but the last third of the century was decisive, and in 1870, steam ship tonnage was more than double that of sailing ships (Fletcher, 1958).

Thus, as of the late nineteenth century, ports ceased to be conditioned by nature. But the size of the vessels and the speed at which they travelled, together with the need for regular services, made it necessary to carry out significant remodelling work at the ports. This was further necessitated by the complexity of the continental coastline, particularly in Africa, and Casablanca and La Guaira are good examples of how new building techniques helped to address these challenges. The ports played a new economic role, and became immersed in a continuous process of modernisation that required considerable financial backing, constituting a further challenge for the public authorities. Moreover, a modern port required both the space and the capacity to install the necessary infrastructure for shipping services, such as coal warehouses, ship repair yards or navy bases to enable military presence to be increased or to act as a base for penetration inland. In almost all cases, massive investment was put in place; indeed, it became one of the characteristics of port reform. Technical progress was to make it possible to access these bays, which were duly remodelled, where necessary, with the necessary docking equipment to facilitate transhipment as well as connections with other means of transport, above all trains. Thus, good economic relations with the hinterland were established.

If we examine the technological requirements and challenges, many countries put port modernisation plans in place (Guimerá and Romero, 1996). In the United Kingdom, ports had to adapt to the speed and size of steam vessels and ensure their capacity to export coal and other commodities (Jackson, 1983). In France, reforms were based on the Freycinet plan, designed by the Minister for Public Works in 1878, which included the possibility of assigning a direct budget and concentrating investment in a limited number of ports (Marnot, 1999), from which Casablanca subsequently benefitted. In Spain (Chapter 2), significant investment was made as of the middle of the century, particularly after the passing of the Port Law in 1880 (Alemany Llovera, 1991); in almost all cases, the works were carried out directly by the state or by the so-called Boards of Port Works, whose resources originated in the levying of taxes or subsidies and loans authorised by the Government.² In Brazil, during the Brazilian Empire, ports began to receive a different...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables, Figures and Maps
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Atlantic Ports: An Interpretative Model
• 2 The Ports of the Canary Islands: The Challenges of Modernity
• 3 Porto Grande of S. Vicente: The Coal Business on an Atlantic Island
• 4 The Port of Casablanca in the First Stage of the Protectorate
• 5 The Port of Dakar: Technological Evolution, Management and Commercial Activity
• 6 The Port of Lagos, 1850–1929: The Rise of West Africa’s Leading Seaport
• 7 Port of Havana: The Gateway of Cuba, 1850–1920
• 8 Port of La Guaira: From Public to Private Management
• 9 The Emergence of Santos as a Coffee Port, 1869–1914
• Index