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In last week’s readings, namely Atlantic History, Chapter 6 and Mintz’s Sweetness and Power, we discussed how the proliferation of sugar effected both demographic changes and consumer changes. This week’s reading (Atlantic History, Chapter 7 and 8) goes a step beyond by assessing how the mass consumption of products traded in the Atlantic world (such as tobacco, chocolate, iron, cloths, and arms) spurred urban development and the rise of a cross-Atlantic cosmopolitan culture. Egerton et. al notes how certain cities, including Seville, Buenos Aires, and Charlestown, owed their emergence due to their significance in some aspect of the Atlantic trade (such as the export of livestock in the case of Buenos Aires, owing to Argentina’s expansive cattle fields) (Egerton, 224). Similarly, the Atlantic trade proves paramount in not only dictating the rise of cities, but also the creation of their wealth and bestowing of a strategic importance. As my colleague warmturtletank states, “Quiet towns became urban trading posts and important port cities because of their access to the Atlantic Ocean.” This statement ties in nicely with the theme of the course, which emphasizes the primacy of the Atlantic trade network and its eponymous oceanic conduit in galvanizing cultural, economic, and development everywhere its appendages extended.
Furthermore, this urban development culminated in the spread of a cosmopolitan culture and diffusion of cultural customs. Egerton et al. provides an excellent example of such by giving an account of a European’s visit to Captain Assou of the Whydah Kingdom’s home (Egerton, 256). By noting the home’s cache of Bordeaux and Madeiran wine, feasts comprised of French cuisine, and Potosi silver eating utensils, as well as Assou’s own distinctively French etiquette, Egerton et al. make an excellent case for the Atlantic trade network’s responsibility for hybrid cultures and syncretic consumption rituals (Egerton, 256). Indeed, the existence of creole languages, numerous pidgins, and racial/ ethnic admixture was born out of the demographic changes caused by the Atlantic slave trade (as discussed last week).
In summation, the mass consumption brought about by the Columbian Exchange enacted very real change in the Americas, Africa, and Europe in the form of urban development and cosmopolitan culture.