Theme

Business, Trade, and Economic History

Featured Items

Printed document shows details of a sugar plantation with manuscript notes.

Particulars of two valuable sugar plantations, St. Kitts . . .

Brettell, Rupert Street, Haymarket
1828
Detail from book cover shows dark brown binding with a missing piece in the front and worn sides.

The Secretary's guide, or, Young mans companion

William Bradford
1728
Detail from book cover shows flower pattern with red details.

Descripçaõ da arvore assucareira

Hipolito Jose da Costa
1800
Printed book bound in red and green Morocco and blue silk with text in Spanish reading "Viva Agustin Primero" on the inner front cover and "emperador de Mexico" on the inner back cover.

Apuntamientos sobre la necesidad de promover el cultivo del azucar y otros frutos

1822
Detail of two books shows brown leather binding and spine labels "1" and "2" and the shortened title.

Histoire philosophique et politique, des établissemens & du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes.

Guillaume Thomas Francois Raynal
1770
Detail of a printed book shows a page with text in Dutch.

Pertinent en waarachtig verhaal van alle de handelingen en directie van Pedro Van Belle

1689
Detail of an engraved map shows mountainous topography and text in Italian.

Descrittione di tutto il Peru

Paulo di Forlani
circa 1564-1572
Detail of engraved, hand colored print of Quebec City shows fortifications, churches and cathedral, statehouse, ships, and dwellings. Also includes title reading "Quebec, the Capital of New France" and other text in English.

Quebec: The Capital of New France

Thomas Johnston
1759

Related

Engraving showing whale fishery
Fellow's Talk

Baleação e Escravidão: Conexões Atlânticas entre New England, África e Brasil. Séculos XVIII e XIX (in Portuguese)

An eighteenth-century hand colored, engraved image of a ship unloading cargo and men from a boat, surrounded by other ships and backgrounded by a fortification, dwellings, churches, and a harbor.
Fellow's Talk

"To cease and yield the continual pretensions of the French:" The Spanish Establishment of Monte Cristi as a Free Port, 1750-1763

Image of Guaman Poma de Ayala scribe
New Acquisitions

Recent Acquisition on Commercial Bureaucracy in the Spanish Empire

June 29
text and diagrams related to early printing

The Illustrated Colonial Printer: An Exhibition to Accompany The Colonial Printer by Lawrence Wroth

Winter 2012
handwriting sample with scrawls in the shape of a bird

Mind Your Business: Records of Early American Commerce at the John Carter Brown Library

Fall 2012
A view of the Strait of Magellan from the Agnese Atlas

Gateway to a New World

July-October 2019
worn, yellow-tinted pages of a 19th century almanac
New Acquisitions

An almanac well-worn through regular use

July 27
photograph of dr. Christy clark-pujara at the John Carter brown library during a presentation

Watch "Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island"

May 1

See Also

French

Nahuatl