Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: Imperial Seas: Cultural Exchange and Commerce in the British Empire, 1780–1900
- 2 From Slaves to Palm Oil: Afro-European Commercial Relations in the Bight of Biafra, 1741–1841
- 3 ‘Pirate Water’: Sailing to Belize in the Mahogany Trade
- 4 Cape to Siberia: The Indian Ocean and China Sea Trade in Equids
- 5 Aden, British India and the Development of Steam Power in the Red Sea, 1825–1839
- 6 The Heroic Age of the Tin Can: Technology and Ideology in British Arctic Exploration, 1818–1835
- 7 The Proliferation and Diffusion of Steamship Technology and the Beginnings of ‘New Imperialism’
- 8 Lakes, Rivers and Oceans: Technology, Ethnicity and the Shipping of Empire in the Late Nineteenth Century
- 9 Making Imperial Space: Settlement, Surveying and Trade in Northern Australia in the Nineteenth Century
- 10 Hydrography, Technology, Coercion: Mapping the Sea in Southeast Asian Imperialism, 1850–1900
- 11 Pains, Perils and Pastimes: Emigrant Voyages in the Nineteenth Century
- 12 Ordering Shanghai: Policing a Treaty Port, 1854–1900
- 13 Toward a People’s History of the Sea
- Select Bibliography
- Index
3 - ‘Pirate Water’: Sailing to Belize in the Mahogany Trade
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: Imperial Seas: Cultural Exchange and Commerce in the British Empire, 1780–1900
- 2 From Slaves to Palm Oil: Afro-European Commercial Relations in the Bight of Biafra, 1741–1841
- 3 ‘Pirate Water’: Sailing to Belize in the Mahogany Trade
- 4 Cape to Siberia: The Indian Ocean and China Sea Trade in Equids
- 5 Aden, British India and the Development of Steam Power in the Red Sea, 1825–1839
- 6 The Heroic Age of the Tin Can: Technology and Ideology in British Arctic Exploration, 1818–1835
- 7 The Proliferation and Diffusion of Steamship Technology and the Beginnings of ‘New Imperialism’
- 8 Lakes, Rivers and Oceans: Technology, Ethnicity and the Shipping of Empire in the Late Nineteenth Century
- 9 Making Imperial Space: Settlement, Surveying and Trade in Northern Australia in the Nineteenth Century
- 10 Hydrography, Technology, Coercion: Mapping the Sea in Southeast Asian Imperialism, 1850–1900
- 11 Pains, Perils and Pastimes: Emigrant Voyages in the Nineteenth Century
- 12 Ordering Shanghai: Policing a Treaty Port, 1854–1900
- 13 Toward a People’s History of the Sea
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
When I was a boy there was hardly, in all my acquaintance, a single reputable family which did not eat off mahogany, sit on mahogany, sleep in mahogany. Mahogany was a symbol of economic solidarity and moral worth.
Aldous Huxley, 1934The increased prosperity of British and North American Atlantic port cities over the course of the eighteenth century is effectively illustrated by the significant expansion in the production of luxury furniture. Hardwoods such as oak and walnut from the British Isles and Europe had long been popular and demand from a range of industries – from furniture to shipbuilding – greatly outstripped local supplies. Imported hardwood species from South America, Africa and South Asia were introduced to suit the demand, whether for strong wood of consistent grain that took well to carving and finishing, or for inlays and veneers that bore the appearance of their exotic origins. By the mid-eighteenth century, mahogany imported from the Caribbean basin was the standard of quality for the highest grade of manufacture. As the century wore on, accessible sources on Jamaica and other islands became depleted and the British increasingly turned farther west, to the Central American mainland flanking the Bay of Honduras (today’s northern Honduras and Belize).
The chests, dining tables, sideboards, chairs, and secretaries, whether decorated or plain, were always highly polished to expose the rich red colour and distinctive grain that identified the wood as the exotic product of British maritime trade into the farthest reaches of the New World sub-tropical rainforest. The ‘economic solidarity and moral worth’ intrinsic to the furniture of Aldous Huxley’s youth, therefore, embodied not just the ingenuity of British cabinetmakers, but also the labour of those who extracted and transported the massive logs to the coast, as well as those who embarked on transatlantic voyages to waters they perceived as remote and dangerous. The African- Caribbean slaves who had been brought to Central American forest camps to hunt for, cut down, and drag out the massive mahogany trees have been investigated through archives and archaeological sites. But exceedingly little evidence has survived of the voyages made by mariners from many European nations to convey the valuable wood to the cabinetmaker.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Maritime EmpiresBritish Imperial Maritime Trade in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 30 - 47Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2004