Yankee merchants in South America: narratives, identity, and social order, 1810-1870

Abstract

American merchants in nineteenth-century South America acted as universal mediators in the world of commodities. Their specific function provided the navigational, commercial, and financial links that connected South America to the expanding Atlantic economy. As travelers or residents, they occupied an enviable position from which to observe and reflect upon the young republics' social, political, and economic order. Conceivably, they could discuss with local administrators, military officers, merchants, and teachers the problems of casting these societies into molds of "progress and civilization." Their own experiences in questions of reform --free trade, prison discipline, management of asylums, poor relief, missionary societies, etc.-- might have helped to organize the chaotic social milieu of post-independence South America. Besides aiding the circulation of commodities, American merchants might have facilitated the dissemination of notions of discipline, order, and morality in the host societies.