Abstract
From the 1650s, the Swedish state actively supported its expanding shipping industry and maritime trade. Sweden pursued a mercantilist policy, and copied the Cromwellian Navigation Act of 1651, which challenged Dutch domination in the Baltic trade. Sweden also founded consulates in ports and cities, first in Europe, and later worldwide. These not only reported on local political conditions and commercial opportunities, but also assisted in the search for return cargoes and helped stuck and sick seamen. As a result, the consulates became well connected with the Swedish maritime sector in the years between 1700 and 1985. Unlike diplomats and ministers, consuls engaged less or not at all in Sweden’s foreign politics, but always represented an important part of Sweden and Norway’s interests abroad. Yet, the Swedish consular service remained for a long time under-researched.
Fortunately, in the last decade the history of Swedish consulates, trade and shipping has regained interest among maritime, economic and diplomatic historians, such as Leos Müller, who has published a monograph (2004) and several articles on the theme. More recently, Utrikesdepartementet (The Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Sjöhistoriska museet and Föreningen Sveriges Sjöfartsmuseum initiated a research project on the subject in 2011 and an international conference in 2014. The conference’s contributors to I främmande hamn examine the Swedish and Swedish–Norwegian consulates from economic, diplomatic and social perspectives. Their purpose is to consider how the roles and functions of consuls changed in the Swedish–Norwegian maritime world and beyond, and whether long-term patterns can be discerned. With this aim in mind, co-editors Aryo Makko and Leos Müller have divided the book into three parts.
After their brief introduction, the first part of the book starts with two analyses of the consulates from a long-term economic and institutional perspective. In the first chapter, Aryo Makko and Leos Müller present a concise overview of the phased development of Swedish and Norwegian shipping, trade and consulates since the 1650s. In a subsequent chapter, Ferry de Goey analyses the development of the American, British, Western European and also Swedish–Norwegian consulates in the nineteenth century. These changed from patronage-driven networks to professionalized and economically important institutions. Moreover, de Goey, Makko and Müller point out that the consulates’ services reduced information and protection costs for merchants and shipowners. This reduction in transaction costs contributed to the rise of overseas shipping and trade. Thus, the consulates’ development contributed to the same link that Douglas North identified first in his Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (1990), a link that is also omnipresent in D.W. Allen’s study (2012). In a third chapter, Lars Ekström describes his daily routine as a Swedish shipping-consul in Antwerp in the 1960s, at the end of an era of long-term development of the Swedish consulates. Örjan Romefors ends the first part with an excellent research guide to the archives of the Swedish and Swedish–Norwegian consulates.
The second part presents six case studies on how consulates represented Swedish and Norwegian interests in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In this period, Russia twice checked Sweden’s continental ambitions eastwards, in the 1720s and again in 1809. After the 1720s, Sweden reoriented to the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and its trade and shipping flourished. In 1809, Sweden lost Finland to Russia and established a union with Norway. Four case studies concentrate on North Africa and Southern Europe where Sweden’s consulates played an important economic and diplomatic role. Sofia Gustafsson studies the consul of Lisbon, Johan Albert Kantzow, and his network in Portugal, an important trade-partner of Sweden. Kantzow inherited a network of experienced vice-consuls of his predecessor that between 1782 and 1808 enabled him to inform Stockholm of important economic opportunities in Portugal and its colonies. Joachim Östlund concentrates on the reports of three Swedish consuls between 1800 and 1850, and their views on the upcoming French colonial ambitions since their capture of Algiers in 1830 and the slave trade over Tripoli. Although the times of Barbary corsairs and endangered European shipping and sailors were over, Peter Bruce describes how 15 years of negotiations – accompanied by the Swedish consul – passed before Sweden and Denmark ended the payment of tributes to former corsair state Morocco. Gustaf Fryksén highlights the Tulin family that held the position of consul in Tunis between 1782 and 1882. He convincingly argues that the Tulins belonged to a Levantine community, acted as consuls for other European states and created an impressive cultural network within Europe.
The last two chapters in the second part focus on the rapid growth of the Swedish–Norwegian consular network during the European global expansion in the nineteenth century. In its wake, the merchant fleets of Sweden and Norway gained access to new European colonies and weak non-European states as China and Japan. After the First Opium War (1839–1842) China opened its internal market and ports to European states. Ingrid Myrstad studies how the Swedish-Norwegian consulate in Shanghai since 1847 helped the export of Swedish and Norwegian produce and shipping line services on an attractive market. Jari Ojala offers a fine example of resilience of consular networks at the beginning of the expansion period. He describes how Finnish merchants and shipowners continued to use Swedish and Norwegian consuls as trade agents after Finland was incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1809. Unfortunately, one misses a chapter on the role of the Swedish–Norwegian consulates in the Americas, where Swedish and Norwegian entrepreneurs rapidly expanded their activities.
The third part shows how Swedish consulates, and new sailor churches and maritime organizations refocused on the sailor’s welfare in the years 1900–1985. This reorientation resulted from a process that had emerged since the 1850s. Shipping and trading firms saw their transaction costs reduced by innovations in ship types, marine technology, port infrastructure, communication and administration. Firms started their own agencies abroad, which internalized and reduced their information costs. Furthermore, Norway, and its extensive merchant fleet, separated from Sweden in 1905. As an overall result, the economic role of the Swedish consulates reduced accordingly.
Sometimes, conflicts arose between sailors, sailor organizations and consulates as Tomas Nilsson notes in his chapter on a paternalistic consul in Antwerp and his efforts to introduce a wage control system for sailors. Aryo Makko analyses how consuls in Antwerp, London, New York and Sydney researched and reported crimes on board Swedish ships. They sometimes convicted sailors, but passed on serious crimes to the Swedish authorities. As a result, they performed various forms of social control. Finally, three shorter chapters by Michael Kjörling, Torbjörn Dalnäs and Lennart Johnsson vividly describe and reflect on the supportive role of the Swedish sailor church for its sailors, the welfare arrangements for Swedish sailors, and the Swedish sailor community in Antwerp. Since the 1970s, further technological and administrative innovations have dramatically reduced the need of consular’s control and social support. Thus, 1985 marked the end of another era and led to the closure of the majority of the Swedish consulates.
I främmande hamn contains several maps and illustrations, and almost all chapters are based on a mix of secondary literature and archival research. This book is recommended to all who study Sweden’s maritime position over the last three centuries and the networks of consuls, entrepreneurs and sailors that have sustained it. One hopes that more initiatives will follow to continue research on the Swedish consulates’ endeavours in the years of expansion 1860–1914 and the turbulent years 1914–1945.