Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T04:03:40.097Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Through the Filter of Tobacco: The Limits of Global Trade in the Early Modern World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2007

Matthew P. Romaniello
Matthew P. Romaniello
Affiliation:
History, University of Hawa'i
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , October 2007 , pp. 914 - 937
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Comparative Study of Society and History 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Miege, Guy, A Relation of Three Embassies from His Sacred Majestie Charles II to the Great Duke of Muscovie, the King of Sweden, and the King of Denmark (London, 1669), 62Google Scholar.

2 On the nature of Anglo-Russian trade, see Anderson, M. S., Britain's Discovery of Russia, 1553–1815 (New York, 1958), 1–48Google Scholar; Phipps, Geraldine M., Sir John Merrick: English Merchant-Diplomat in Seventeenth-Century Russia (Newtonville, Mass., 1983)Google Scholar; and Baron, Samuel H., “Thrust and Parry: Anglo-Russian Relations in the Muscovite North,” Oxford Slavonic Papers, New Series, 21 (1988), 19–40Google Scholar.

3 For a discussion of the Dutch breakthrough into the Muscovite market, see Lubimenko, Inna, “The Struggle of the Dutch with the English for the Russian Market in the Seventeenth Century,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fourth Series, 7 (1924), 27–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Israel, Jonathan I., Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585–1740 (Oxford, 1989), 43–48Google Scholar; and Veinroks, E. Kh., “Mezhdunarodnaia konkurentsiia v torgovle mezhdu Rossiei i Zapadnoi Evropoi,” in, Bespiatykh, Iu. N., ed., Russkii Sever i Zapadnaia Evropa (St. Petersburg, 1999), 9–41Google Scholar.

4 Razskazov, I., “Istoricheskiia svedeniia o tabake,” Zapiska Imperatorskogo Kazanskogo ekonomicheskogo obshchestva, 1, 1 (Jan. 1854): 16–17Google Scholar; MacInnes, C. M., The Early English Tobacco Trade (London, 1926), 171–77Google Scholar; Frederickson, O. J., “Virginia Tobacco in Russia under Peter the Great,” Slavonic and East European Review 21 (1943): 40–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nikiforov, A. A., Russko-Angliiskie otnoshenia pri Petre I (Moscow, 1950), 37–41Google Scholar; Crosby, Alfred W. Jr., “The Beginnings of Trade between the United States and Russia,” The American Neptune 21 (1961): 207–15Google Scholar; Price, Jacob M., The Tobacco Adventure to Russia: Enterprise, Politics, and Diplomacy in the Quest for a Northern Market for English Colonial Tobacco, 1676–1722 (Philadelphia, 1961)Google Scholar; Kirchner, Walter, Commercial Relations between Russia and Europe 1400–1800: Collected Essays (Bloomington, Ind., 1966), 176–77Google Scholar; Barany, George, The Anglo-Russian Entente Cordiale of 1697–1698: Peter I and William III at Utrecht (New York, 1986), 25–40Google Scholar; Demkin, A. V., Britanskoe kupechestvo v Rossii XVIII veka (Moscow, 1998), 107–14Google Scholar.

5 For an excellent introduction to the topic see Kotilaine, Jarmo T., “Mercantilism in Pre-Petrine Russia,” in, Kotilaine, Jarmo and Poe, Marshall, eds., Modernizing Muscovy: Reform and Social Change in Seventeenth-Century Russia (London, 2004), 143–73Google Scholar.

6 In this way, the Anglo-Russian tobacco trade contributes to the ongoing discussions of the impact of conflicting cosmologies in the reception of new commodities. For an introduction to the topic, see Mintz, Sidney W., Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York, 1985)Google Scholar; Sahlins, Marshall, “Cosmologies of Capitalism: The Trans-Pacific Sector of ‘The World System,’” Proceedings of the British Academy 74 (1988): 1–51Google Scholar.

7 For a discussion of English cultural reactions to tobacco, see Knapp, Jeffrey, “Elizabethan Tobacco,” Representations 21 (1988): 27–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 James, I, A Counterblaste to Tobacco (London, 1601; repr. Amsterdam, 1969), 6Google Scholar.

9 This is reflective of the growing public concern about trade. See Ashton, Robert, “The Parliamentary Agitation for Free Trade in the Opening Years of the Reign of James I,” Past and Present 38 (1967): 40–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Edward Bennett, A Treatise Touching the Importation of Tobacco from Spaine (n.p., 1620; repr. Amsterdam, 1977). For a discussion of the development of American tobacco plantations to avoid the loss of further specie to European competitors, see Williams, Neville, “England's Tobacco Trade in the Reign of Charles I,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 65 (1957): 403–49Google Scholar, and Pagan, John R., “Dutch Maritime and Commercial Activity in Mid-Seventeenth Century Virginia,” The Virginian Magazine of History and Biography 90 (1982): 485–501Google Scholar.

11 Mun's study was first published in 1664. Mun, Thomas, England's Treasure by Forraign Trade (London, 1713), Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature, no. 5034, 15–16.Google Scholar

12 Rive, Alfred, “A Brief History of the Regulation and Taxation of Tobacco in England,” William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, Second series, 9 (1929): 1–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Matthee, Rudi, “Exotic Substances: The Introduction and Global Spread of Tobacco, Coffee, Cocoa, Tea, and Distilled Liquor, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries,” in, Porter, Roy and Teich, Mikulas, eds., Drugs and Narcotics in History (Cambridge, 1995), 33Google Scholar.

14 Tsar Feodor Ivanovich to the Muscovy Company, Feb. 1586, The National Archives, Kew, England (hereafter NA), State Papers (hereafter SP) 91/1, ff. 55r–58r.

15 Dunning, Chester, “James I, the Russian Company, and the Plan to Establish a Protectorate over North Russia,” Albion 21 (1989): 206–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 In a recent study of the Muscovy Company, it has been demonstrated that this was only a perceived decline. Arel, Maria Salomon, “The Muscovy Company in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century. Trade and Position in the Russian State. A Reassessment” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1995)Google Scholar.

17 Phipps, Geraldine M., “The Russian Embassy to London of 1645–46 and the Abrogation of the Muscovy Company's Charter,” Slavonic and East European Review 68 (1990): 257–76Google Scholar.

18 Gokhale, B. G., “Tobacco in Seventeenth-Century India,” Asian Agri-History 2, 2 (1998): 87–96Google Scholar.

19 Matthee, Rudi, The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500–1900 (Princeton, 2005), 117–43Google Scholar.

20 For a brief discussion of these accomplishments, see Pavlov, Andrei and Perrie, Maureen, Ivan the Terrible (London, 2003), 41–78Google Scholar.

21 This resolution is published in chapter 39 of the Stoglav, the canons of the 1551 council. E. B. Emchenko, ed., Stolgav: Issledovaniie i tekst (Moscow, 2000), 302.

22 Mintz, Sidney W., Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom (Boston, 1996), 76–77Google Scholar.

23 Rowland, Daniel B., “Did Muscovite Literary Ideology Place Limits on the Power of the Tsar (1540s–1660s)?” The Russian Review 49 (1990): 125–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “Moscow—The Third Rome or the New Israel?” The Russian Review 55 (1996): 591–614.

24 Chronograph, last quarter of the seventeenth century, Aronov Collection, no. 18, Hilandar Research Library, Columbus, Oh. The text from ff. 10r.–722v. closely resembles the Stepennaia kniga of the sixteenth century; published in Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei, v. 21, pts. 1 and 2 (St. Petersburg, 1908–1913; repr. Dusseldorf, 1970).

25 Pelenski, Jaroslaw, Russia and Kazan: Conquest and Imperial Ideology (1438–1560s) (The Hague, 1974), 251–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Here I borrow the idea of charismatic authority from Geertz, Clifford, “Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power,” in, Ben-David, Joseph and Clark, Terry Nichols, eds., Culture and Its Creators: Essays in Honor of Edward Shils (Chicago, 1977), 150–71Google Scholar.

27 Kollmann, Nancy S., “Pilgrimage, Procession and Symbolic Space in Sixteenth-Century Russian Politics,” in, Flier, Michael S. and Rowland, Daniel, eds., Medieval Russian Culture, vol. 2 (Berkeley, 1994), 164–81Google Scholar.

28 Crummey, Robert O., “Court Spectacles in Seventeenth-Century Russia: Illusion and Reality,” in, Waugh, Daniel, ed., Essays in Honor of A. A. Zimin (Columbus, Oh., 1985), 130–58Google Scholar; Bushkovitch, Paul A., “The Epiphany Ceremony of the Russian Orthodox Court in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” The Russian Review 49 (1990): 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Flier, Michael S., “Breaking the Code: The Image of the Tsar in the Muscovite Palm Sunday Ritual,” in, Flier, Michael S. and Rowland, Daniel, eds., Medieval Russian Culture, vol. 2 (Berkeley, 1994), 213–44Google Scholar.

29 Chronograph, last quarter of the seventeenth century, Aronov Collection, no. 18, Hilandar Research Library, Columbus, Oh., ff. 723r.–785v.

30 Massa, Isaac, A Short History of the Beginnings and Origins of these Present Wars in Moscow under the Reign of Various Sovereigns Down to the Year 1610, Orchard, G. Edward, trans. and ed. (Toronto, 1982), 190Google Scholar.

31 Burton, Audrey, The Bukharans: A Dynastic, Diplomatic and Commercial History 1550–1702 (New York, 1997), 508–9Google Scholar.

32 Hellie, Richard, trans. and ed., The Muscovite Law Code (Ulozhenie) of 1649: Part 1, Text and Translation (Irvine, Calif., 1988), ch. 25, article 11, p. 228Google Scholar. Olearius, Adam, The Travels of Olearius in Seventeenth-Century Russia, Baron, Samuel H., trans. and ed. (Stanford, 1967), 230–31Google Scholar.

33 Olearius, The Travels of Olearius, 146, 230–31.

34 Hellie, Muscovite Law Code, ch. 25, article 11, p. 228. Inozemtsy, literally “people of foreign lands,” includes both non-Russian Muscovite subjects as well as all foreigners; that is, non-subjects.

35 Hellie, Muscovite Law Code, ch. 25, article 13, 228–29.

36 Hellie, Muscovite Law Code, ch. 25, article 16, p. 229.

37 Burton, Bukharans, 515.

38 Solovetskoe sobranie 661/719, last miracle dated 1695/6, Russian National Library, St. Petersburg, fols. 16v and 36v, courtesy of Eve Levin.

39 For an extensive discussion of foreign trade, see Kotilaine, J. T., Russia's Foreign Trade and Economic Expansion in the Seventeenth Century: Windows on the World (Leiden, 2005)Google Scholar.

40 Olearius, Travels of Olearius, 146, 230–31.

41 For example, Iakubov, K., “Rossiia i Shvetsiia v pervoi polovine XVII vv., VI: 1647–1650 gg. Doneseniia koroleve Khristine i pis'ma k korolevskomu sekretariu shvedskogo rezidenta v Moskve Karla Pommereninga,” Chteniia v imperatorskom obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiskikh pri Moskovskom universitete 1 (1898), p. 426, 19 Sept. 1648Google Scholar.

42 Doroshenko, V. V., Torgovlia i kupechestvo Rigi v XVII veke (Riga, 1985), 147, 222Google Scholar. The Swedish tobacco imports during the seventeenth century and the smuggling of tobacco into Russia are discussed in Price, The Tobacco Adventure, 5–17.

43 Pogradskaia, E. M., “Moldavskoe kniazhestvo i torgovlia Ottomanskoi imperii s Russkim gosudarstvom (XVII v.),” in, Budak, I. G., et al. , eds., Voprosy ekonomicheskoi istorii Moldavii: Epokhi feodalizma i kapitalizma (Kishinev, 1972), 90–99Google Scholar.

44 Letter from Charles I to Mikhail Fedorovich, 22 June 1634, NA, PRO 22/60, English Royal Letters in the Soviet Central State Archive of Ancient Records, 1557–1655, no. 62.

45 The tsar's reply to the king's plea for Cartwright is reprinted in, “Seven Letters of Tsar Mikhail to King Charles I, 1634–8,” Oxford Slavonic Papers 9 (1960): 52–54.

46 Miege, A Relation of Three Embassies, 101–2. For an overview of the price fluctuations of tobacco, see Hellie, Richard, The Economy and Material Culture of Russia, 1600–1725 (Chicago, 1999), 106–7Google Scholar.

47 This was instruction no. 5 (of twenty-four) presented to Hebdon to explicate his responsibilities in Moscow, given to him on 16 September 1676 in London. Instructions from the fellowship of English Merchants, NA, SP 91/3, pt. 2, fols. 210r–212v.

48 Letter from John Hebdon in Moscow to the King, 1676, NA, SP 91/3, Secretaries of State: State Papers, Russia, pt. 2, fols. 225r–226v.

49 The Humble Proposalls of John Hebdon Esq., [1677], NA, SP 91/3, pt. 2, fol. 243r.

50 Extract of the Emperor of Russia's Letter to the King, 27 Feb. 1678, NA, SP 91/3, pt. 2, fols. 285r–286r.

51 Historians have studied extensively the free trade debates. For recent contributions to the topic, see Harpham, Edward J., “Class, Commerce, and the State: Economic Discourse and Lockean Liberalism in the Seventeenth Century,” The Western Political Quarterly 38 (1985): 565–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Arneil, Barbara, “Trade, Plantations, and Property: John Locke and the Economic Defense of Colonialism,” Journal of the History of Ideas 55 (1994): 591–609CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52 In his preface, Child placed the importance of trading in Muscovy as the first priority of English trade. Child, Sir Josiah, A New Discourse of Trade (London, 1693), Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature, no. 2804, preface, and p. 105Google Scholar.

53 Pollexfen, John, A Discourse of Trade, Coyn and Paper Credit (London, repr. 1700), Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature, no. 3665, 90–91Google Scholar.

54 For a discussion of the price decline and its impact, see Walsh, Lorena S., “Plantation Management in the Chesapeake, 1620–1820,” The Journal of Economic History 49 (1989): 393–406CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Dixon, Simon, ed., Britain and Russia in the Age of Peter the Great: Historical Documents (London, 1998), no. 14, Jan.–Feb. 1698, 11–12Google Scholar.

56 “Further Reasons for Inlarging the Trade to Russia, humbly offer'd by … the Plantations of Virginia and Maryland” (London[?], 1695), Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature, no. 3081.6.

57 Inozemtsy is the only collective noun used to identify foreigners and the tsar's non-Russian subjects in the Ulozhenie, for example.

58 Polnoe sobranie zakonov Russiskoi Imperii (hereafter PSZ), Series 1 (St. Petersburg, 1830), II, no. 1225, 842–43.

59 Shevchenko, F. P., Politychni ta ekonomichni zv'iaski Ukrainy z Rosieiu v seredyni XVII st. (Kiev, 1959), 430Google Scholar.

60 In 1698, the instruction sent to the governor of Kazan' province warned him to beware of Tatar, Chuvash, and Udmurt consumers of tobacco. If tobacco was discovered in the possession of non-Russians, it should be seized and destroyed, though the governor was not told to interrogate or torture the tobacco users. PSZ, Vol. 3, no. 1579, article 11, 287.

61 Hellie, Economy and Material Culture, 107.

62 Burton, Bukharans, 495, 525.

63 Ryan, W. F., “Peter the Great's English Yacht: Admiral Lord Carmarthen and the Russian Tobacco Monopoly,” Mariner's Mirror 69 (1983): 65–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64 The complete contract is reproduced in Pis'ma i bumagi imperatora Petra Velikago (St. Petersburg, 1887), I, no. 234, 243–49.

65 Shaskol'skii, I. P., Ekonomicheskie sviazi mezhdu Rossiei i Shvetsiei v XVII veke, vol. 3 (Moscow, 1981), no. 56, 1698, 464–66Google Scholar; and no. 57, 20 Dec. 1698, 466–70.

66 Contemporary translation of letter from Peter Aleksevich to William III, 10 Apr. 1699, NA, SP 104/120, fols. 17r–18r.

67 The negotiator was Charles Goodfellow. Letter from William III to Peter Aleksevich, 12 Sept. 1699, NA, SP 104/120, fols. 16r–17v.

68 These points are explicitly made in: Letter from William III to Peter Aleksevich, 29 May 1701, SP 104/120, fols. 31r–32r; Letter from Anne to Peter Aleksevich, 20 Jan. 1702, SP 104/120, fols. 35r–36r; and also Britain and Russia, no. 44, Petition from the British Merchants to Peter I, Feb. 1703, 39–40.

69 “Some Considerations Relating to the Enlarging the Russia Trade, and the Contract for Importing Tobacco into that Countrey,” Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature, no. 3675.8.

70 Pis'ma i bumagi imperatora Petra Velikago, I, no. 369, 443.

71 Pis'ma i bumagi imperatora Petra Velikago, IV, no. 1142, 147; and IV, no. 1189, 201–2.

72 PSZ, VII, no. 5164, 26 Sept. 1727, 865–68.

73 Specifically, the price of one funt of tobacco (409.5 oz.) dropped from 30 kopeks to 9 to 15 kopeks in 1705–1706. Hellie, Economy and Material Culture, 107.

74 Memo from the Queen at Whitehall to Foreign Secretary Harley, 26 May 1705, NA, SP 104/120, fols. 56r–56v.

75 From the Court at St. James, 31 May 1705, NA, SP 104/120, fols. 54v–56r.

76 Letter to Whitworth from C. Hedges, NA, SP 104/120, fols. 53r–54r.

77 Letter to Whitworth from Secretary Harley, 23/24 July 1705, NA, SP 104/120, fols. 56v–57v.

78 Letter to Mr. Marshall and Mr. Peacock from Whitworth, 15 July 1705, NA, SP 91/4, pt. 2, fols. 1r–2v.

79 Letter from Queen Anne, NA, SP 104/120, fols. 59r–60r.

80 Letter from Whitworth to Secretary Harley, 25 July 1705, NA, SP 91/4, pt. 2, fols. f 11r–12r.

81 Letter from Secretary Harley to Whitworth, 7 Dec. 1705, NA, SP 104/120, fols. 60r–61r; and Letter from Secretary Harley to Whitworth, NA, SP 104/120, fols. 61r–61v.

82 Letter from Whitworth to Secretary Harley, 5 Aug. 1705, NA, SP 91/4, pt. 2, fols. 11r–12r.

83 Letter from Whitworth to Secretary Harley, 22 Aug. 1705, NA, SP 91/4, pt. 2, fols. 16r–18r, recounts the rumors and Whitworth's recent meeting with the tsarist ministers. The first explanation was not readily accepted, as evinced when Whitworth instructed London of another meeting in which he explained that the Queen's laws banned English subjects from entering into contracts with foreign princes without the monarch's approval, but the Queen still approved of the English shipwrights in the tsar's government. Letter from Whitworth to Secretary Harley, 7 Oct. 1705, NA, SP 91/4, pt. 2, fols. 32r–34v.

84 Letter from Whitworth to Secretary Harley, 29 Apr. 1706, NA, SP 91/4, pt. 3, fols. 5r–10v.

85 Letter from Whitworth to Secretary Harley, 12 Dec. 1705, NA, SP 91/4, pt. 2, fols. 50r–51v.

86 Two accounts still exist, both written by Goodfellow. An Account of the Tobacco the Company Have Lying Unsold in Russia, 26 Jan. 1706, PRO, SP 91/4, pt. 2, fol. 106r; An Accounting of the Tobacco Holdings, 30 Mar. 1706, NA, SP 91/4, pt. 2, fols. 125r–126v.

87 The tobacco transfer was a frequent subject of Whitworth's letters to London. Letter from Whitworth to Secretary Harley, 7 July 1706, PRO, SP 91/4, pt. 3, fols. 23r–24v; and Letter from Whitworth to Secretary Harley, 18 Aug. 1706, NA, SP 91/4, pt. 3, fols. 39r–40v.

88 Letter from Whitworth to Secretary Harley, 11 Feb. 1707, NA, SP 91/5, pt. 1, ff. 36v.–36r.

89 Wortman, Richard S., Ceremonies of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy, Volume One: From Peter the Great to the Death of Nicholas I (Princeton, 1995), 42–88Google Scholar.

90 Maikov, L. N., Razskazy Nartova o Petre Velikom (St. Petersburg, 1897), 16–17Google Scholar.

91 Glaser, F. L., ed., Scenes from the Court of Peter the Great: Based on the Latin Diary of John G. Korb (New York, 1931), 126–27Google Scholar. For a discussion of this episode, see Zitser, Ernest A., The Transfigured Kingdom: Sacred Parody and Charismatic Authority at the Court of Peter the Great (Ithaca, 2004), 1–7Google Scholar.

92 Kafengauz, B. B., I. T. Pososhkov: Zhizn' i deiatel'nost' (Moscow, 1951), no. 5, 174–82Google Scholar.

93 Hughes, Russia in the Age of Peter the Great, 283.

94 Shmurlo, E., Petr Velikii v otsenke sovremennikov i potomstva (St. Petersburg, 1912), I, primechaniia 1Google Scholar. For other protests, see Hughes, Russia in the Age of Peter the Great, 447–51.

95 A good discussion of the emergence of new social values in the eighteenth century can be found in Engel, Barbara Alpern, Women in Russia, 1700–2000 (Cambridge, 2004), 5–67Google Scholar.

96 For a brief history on the emergence of broadsides in Russia, see Ovsiannikov, Iurii, Lubok: Russkie narodnye kartinki XVII–XVIII vv. (Moscow, 1968), 5–33Google Scholar.

97 For a selection of such artifacts, see Bardovskaia, L., Sektret dvortsovoi tabakerki (St. Petersburg, 2002)Google Scholar.

98 Crummey, Robert O., The Old Believers and the World of Antichrist: The Vyg Community and the Russian State, 1694–1855 (Madison, 1970), 62–64Google Scholar; Gur'ianova, N. S., Krest'ianskii antimonarkhicheskii protest v staroobriadcheskoi eskhatologicheskoi literature perioda poznego feodalizma (Novosibirsk, 1988), 38–60Google Scholar.

99 Pamiatniki starinnoi russkoi literatury, pts. 1–2, 427–34. A translation of the tale is included in Robson, Roy R., “Old Believers in Imperial Russia: A Legend on the Appearance of Tobacco,” in, Husband, William B., ed., The Human Tradition in Modern Russia (Wilmington, Del., 2000), 19–29Google Scholar.

100 Two such examples are included in Hilton, Alison, Russian Folk Art (Bloomington, 1995), illustrations 5.2 and 6.5Google Scholar.