Operating Outside of Empire: Trade and Citizenship in the Atlantic World, 1756-1812

This project examines merchants operating at the edge of empire and the competing discourses on trade, cosmopolitanism, and neutrality that statesmen, philosophers, and merchants mobilized. Under increasing demands for consumer goods, states were willing to bend supposedly strict mercantilist regulations to guarantee the steady supply of commodities in the metropole. This program will look at Samuel Cabot's and John and Jonathan Amory's participation in this often illicit, yet highly profitable transatlantic carrying trade during the foundational period for modern citizenship and increasing state regulation.