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Beckett

18 June 2021: First Steps

During the first two weeks of June, I began my summer research as an Honors Fellow and as a part of Professor Prado’s Global Americas project. June 2^nd marked the beginning of my thesis efforts, after having some time to myself after last semester. My first responsibility for the project, alongside Andrew Hou, was to select a newspaper published in Boston between 1776 and 1830, which provided the richest shipping information. We settled on the New-England Palladium, a twice-weekly political newspaper that ran from 1803-1820, with Federalist leanings. Data entry can be a slow process, with only one newspaper being analyzed over the course of an hour, but unlike most other historical research, at least I can do it to music. Hopefully, as I get more experience reading the papers and build up a log of past ships, the entries will go faster.

With the data entry came secondary readings to inform my work for Global Americas and my personal research. I began with several readings suggested to me by Professor Prado, including Stephen Chambers’s No God But Gain: The Untold Story of Cuban Slavery, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Making of the United States, which I would recommend to anyone studying early republican diplomacy and the development of the U.S. economy. This work and others initiated my sure-to-be-lengthy reading list for the summer. I also began my first searches for primary sources in online databases provided by New England history societies, including: the John Carter Brown library, the American Antiquarian Society, and the Massachusetts Historical Society. For anyone looking to do their own research during these virtual times, I cannot recommend enough reaching out to research librarians. They can offer great recommendations for search terms and specific sources in some cases, as well as informing you of other libraries’ collections to look at. The greatest frustration I’ve run into is the lack of digitized versions of many of the sources I’d like to see. While this means I can’t view all the things I think would be useful to me, it also means that I likely won’t be overreaching on how many archives I attempt to make use of.

--Beckett

16 July 2021: In the Thick of It

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been over a month since I started my research. While I am searching for a wide variety of primary source materials, it can still be hard to find just what I’m looking for. My thesis aims to shed light on the importation of Caribbean foodstuffs and patterns of their consumption in Boston and its hinterland. This goal means I need to look at ships’ manifests and bills of lading, grocers’ and wholesalers’ account books, published and personal cookbooks, journal entries describing meals, and travelers’ accounts that mention the culinary world of Boston. My hope is that the varied source types will help me keep the bigger picture of international trade in mind as I use individuals as examples of the wider networks and patterns of consumption.

I’ve had the fortune of receiving guidance from Professor Prado and Professor Kelly Erby of Washburn University as I continue to look for primary sources. Although I’m only now getting to find documents that I can access directly, Prof. Prado’s story of not finding relevant resources in his own search until a full month working in an archive reminds me not to panic. My research is going to be a long process and as long as I keep chipping away each day, I’m sure that there will be plenty of exciting discoveries in store. Although I wish I could physically be going through documents, I’m extremely appreciative of the digital search engines most research libraries provide for remote workers such as myself. Now that I’ve gathered lists of seemingly relevant documents from several libraries, hopefully I can get digital scans of at least some of them. I also have upcoming research appointments at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester. I’m most excited to see several grocers’ account books, which should show me, for example, how much sugar a certain customer bought over several months or even years. If I can get an idea of how much sugar a few households went through in a month, then I can make assumptions about what “regular” or common consumption levels were in Boston and its hinterland.

--Beckett

12 August 2021: Considering My Summer Efforts

When I set out at the beginning of this summer, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. One of the first things I learned is that researching is a humbling, and at times frustrating, process. It wasn’t until over a month of looking through online catalogs and communicating with research librarians at different archives that I found sources I could view, either digitally or in-person, as I mentioned previously. As the saying goes though, slow and steady wins the race. Around the same time, I began to notice patterns in my shipping data collected from the 1811 editions of the New-England Palladium. Within the first couple weeks I had set my focus on the developing trade connections between Boston and the Caribbean. As the closest point for international contact, I figured ships traveling and sources documenting trade between the two would be abundant.

However, I realized that examining the Iberian Peninsula’s influence a whole would produce more interesting results. This approach meant that I could include goods from Spain, Portugal, and their Atlantic territories within the scope of my research. To some surprise, I found that Lisbon was the most declared destination from the port of Boston during 1811 with 50 vessels claiming it as their intended port of call. Havana was the fourth most declared destination, having 30 vessels announcing it as their next stop. Both ports also featured in the top five of ports of origin possessing 71 and 72 vessels respectively. Though on opposite sides of the Atlantic and answering to different rulers at the time, Spain’s and Portugal’s histories had long been intertwined and their colonies often shared trade networks. They also traded in similar goods: citrus fruits and salt from the Peninsula itself, sugar, coffee, spices, and hides coming from their various American colonies. The United States was a major consumer of these goods and the dominant transporter of those goods as a neutral nation during the Napoleonic wars.

My historiographical style has also shifted somewhat from a straight cultural history to a mixed economic and cultural history; this change was to be expected considering the primary sources I've decided to use. I hope to bring the two into conversation by using the cultural history to show the microcosm of Boston (as representative of New England), while the economic observations can explain Boston’s foodways in the macrocosm of inter-Atlantic trade. Economic records like grocers' and wholesalers' account and day books can provide both kinds of information, since they show monetary transactions, which can reveal the more cultural aspect of food consumption. As I now face starting the writing phase of my thesis, I find myself unsure of how to start. Writing is usually my favorite part of the historical research process; it still is, but now I’m beginning to understand many historians’ love-hate relationship with it. I have several pieces laying before me, but the trial-and-error process of putting them together to present to the Charles Center and my fellow researchers will occupy me for the next couple of weeks and months to come.

--Beckett

Sigi

Blog 1: Starting up...again

This first week with my project transported me to the Summer of 2020. Last year is when I began my work with the Global Americas Shipping Database, recording entries and departures of ships from the newspaper El Semanario de Agricultura, Industria y Comercio. Continuing with this database this summer, while focusing on smallpox vaccination in Río de la Plata, was an experience of relearning the processes and practices of database entry and re-familiarizing myself with the complex themes presented within the newspaper. While extremely comfortable using the statistical software, SPSS, I had not looked over either the data or the newspaper in almost a year. Yet, once I was logged back on, it was like riding a bike.

I began by combing through the 1087 page document containing the Semanario trying to find where I last left off. Through searching the ship I had last recorded (el Ecce Homo) and the date on which it had entered Montevideo (10 November 1805), I discovered I had previously covered 573 pages of the newspaper and recorded the movements of over 700 ships. Here is where I also began my vaccine research, collecting the location and mentions of smallpox vaccinations within the text. Throughout the project, I will record all of the instances where the passages mention the vaccine to provide crucial information on the pathway of inoculation. To supplement my relearning, I also read a few secondary sources to reacquaint myself with the general topic.

Lastly, I restarted the hunt for secondary sources on the smallpox vaccine and how the Spanish attempted to spread it throughout their colonies. So far, my sources are limited to some journal articles and a book chapter by people in the medical profession or historians of science and medicine. The most significant puzzle piece is my area of interest, Río de la Plata. Simply from preliminary research, I have identified a gap in the Spaniard's vaccination route and sporadic mentions of how the region they missed gained access to the vaccine without the Spanish. I hope that this research will illuminate how smallpox inoculation became widespread in Río de la Plata devoid of colonial support and through trans-Atlantic shipping connections.

--Sigi

Blog 2: Diving into the second week

My second week doing this research has started me on a path to uncover secondary sources. This topic has the unique position of being both under-researched and overwhelmingly written about. This means that there are plenty of books and articles about the Spaniard's smallpox vaccination project, called The Spanish Royal Philanthropic Vaccine Expedition, detailing the members, route, methodology, vaccine reception, and hardships of the journey. Scholars generally agree on the expedition’s purpose and trajectory, with plenty of information on the countries and communities the Spaniard’s reached with the smallpox vaccine. Unfortunately, the trail goes relatively cold following reports of the death of José Salvany y Lleopart in 1810, the expedition's leader in South America. Due to this unexpected setback, the expedition never traveled to the region I am studying, Río de la Plata, although it was part of their proposed route. This is where the primary source entries from the newspaper El Semanario de Agricultura, Industria y Comercio become important, as they detail how the smallpox vaccine arrived in the area from Brazil on the Portuguese ship La Rosa del Rio in 1805. Therefore, sources on smallpox vaccination in Río de la Plata are hard to find.

I began my search by scouring the secondary sources that include the official expedition for any mentions of Rio de la Plata or the port cities within this Viceroyalty, like Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Most sources will acknowledge the disruption in the expedition and the more detailed ones will explain complaints from the team on vaccine introductions in Chile, Paraguay, and other regions that are unconnected to the Royal Spanish mission. If a source identifies these instances, I will mine through the footnotes and bibliography to see where they got this information to find a secondary source that focuses on La Rosa del Rio and colonial attempts to spread the vaccine. Through this method, I have uncovered a variety of sources that led me to more details about the ship, the enslaved people carrying the vaccine, and the main local propagators of the vaccine, including religious and political authorities. This week has shown me that while research can be intense and at first unrewarding, perseverance and innovation will always bear rewards for those who try.

--Sigi

Blog 3: Into the Thick of It

This week’s focus regarding my research is sifting through the treacherous yet rewarding realm of primary sources. The risk with these types of sources is that they only represent a small, and often skewed, window into methods, events, and perspectives of the time. Primary sources should not be taken at face value, as they exist within the context of their author, the era, and the written norms. The reward with primary information is that, once contextualized, they can serve as stepping stones to further questions about the material included in the source and that which has been excluded.

Within my research, I have been mining through the vaccine entries in the newspaper, El Semanario de Agricultura, Industria y Comercio (1802-1807). As mentioned in a previous blog, my region of interest, Río de la Plata, never received the vaccine from the Spanish Royal Philanthropic Expedition as its head fell ill and never made it to Buenos Aires. Thus, very few primary sources cover vaccination in Río de la Plata and even fewer secondary sources cover the topic. El Semanario... is a prime resource for smallpox vaccinations as the viceroyalty itself and its colonial elite, such as the newspaper’s editor Juan Hipólito Vieytes, designated themselves responsible for disseminating the vaccine.

In line with his enlightenment ideology, Vieytes included a variety of medical and scientific information to encourage vaccination in the area. El Semanario… contains rich information about the arrival of the first vaccine in the southern cone, via a Poruguese trader and his cargo of vaccinated enslaved men, and its propagation to other regions. Additionally, it provides its readers with details on the vaccine’s side effects, warns them against the false vaccine, dispels myths with scientific information, and advocates for widespread vaccination in hopes of strengthening the colonial population. Vieytes, through his work on El Semanario…, provides a clear example of colonial agency and identity that led to the Age of Revolutions in Latin America.

--Sigi

Blog 4: That ship has sailed… and then returned three months later

A large part of my research project, specifically concerning my main primary source El Semanario…, involves cataloguing the arrivals and departures of ships in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. While it seems unconnected to the work on the smallpox vaccine and the usage of enslaved people for medical purposes, ships and shipping trade are precisely the vessels which carry the vaccine, vaccinated bodies, and ideas about inoculation. Cataloguing the entries and exits, cargo, types, nationality, captain, and routes of ships has helped me identify patterns in shipping that reveal international trade networks and paint a picture of the social environment in these port cities. For example, in fall of 1805, there was an influx of American ships, most of which carried enslaved people as their main cargo.

To contextualize this information, I reached out to my advisor to recommend any secondary sources that relate to the issue of American slavers, the slave trade, and the smallpox vaccine. Considering how the spread of smallpox through Latin America was exacerbated by the slave trade, there were many sources detailing the efforts of port authorities and slavers at curbing infection coming from slave ships. A key piece of information garnered by sifting through the reading recommendations is that ports like Buenos Aires and Montevideo often required a quarantine for slave ships to avoid contaminating cities and which were often followed by mandatory smallpox vaccination for enslaved people. Essentially, the same system of shipping and trade that brought to Río de la Plata via enslaved bodies also facilitated the inoculation of incoming enslaved people that would further advance vaccination efforts across the region.

--Sigi

Blog 5: Networks, networking, and working on the net

Nearing the final weeks of my internship, I am beginning to piece together my research findings. Over the past few weeks, I have combed through the newspaper El Semanario, cataloged incoming and outgoing ships, created a record of vaccination entries, and read secondary sources about the vaccination expedition and possible unofficial vaccination routes. From this work, I have been able to narrow down my ideas for my final paper and begin forming an outline. Nonetheless, my research still lacked primary components that would enrich the content immensely. Thankfully my advisor connected me with Farren Yero, a postdoctoral associate at Duke University and historian of science and medicine in Latin America and the Caribbean. Her research on the history of slavery and vaccination, specifically her article on the use of enslaved people for smallpox vaccination in colonial Cuba, provided valuable information for my research. Once in contact over email, she recommended a variety of sources about the vaccine path in Argentina and Peru and the vaccine’s effect on enslaved populations. As I pursue this topic further, I hope to continue collaborating with Farren in the future.

Another update for this week is the work our team has done for the website. As part of our collective deliverables, the team has created a Google Site to share our research, introduce students to the topic, and encourage further interest. So far, we have uploaded introductory paragraphs for our project and the individual data sets, biographies for our team members, and a list of recommended readings. Towards the end of the project, we hope to upload our completed data sets and finalized abstracts for our papers. We believe this website will bring more awareness to our research topics and encourage students to use our work as a stepping stone for future projects.

--Sigi

Blog 6: Reflections on a Productive Summer

As my summer research endeavors come to a close, I can’t help but reflect on the successes, struggles, and overall progress made over these several weeks. This year’s discoveries have surpassed my expectations, as my work has culminated in a term-style paper, a collaborative website, and a roadmap for my future honors thesis. Like last summer, my work began collecting data from the newspaper El Semanario, which consumed a large percentage of my time this year. Reading through the entries, I was always fascinated by the information in this primary source, from the countless records of international ships to the helpful agricultural, medical, and intellectual material provided for all readers. Quantifying these findings through the data set on SPSS has enhanced my attention to detail and provided a range of statistical conclusions about shipping patterns in the region. Perhaps the most valuable finding was the abundant number of foreign slave ships entering the ports, which now provide evidentiary support in my paper.

Collaborating with my peers has also been a highlight of my research endeavors. As a collaborative project, the team shared their findings, held discussions, asked questions, and co-authored the website that now houses our progress and final products. Hearing updates from the team every week brought an appreciation for our contributions and allowed team members to hone their presentation skills and learn from each other.

The process of producing my formal research project was an entirely different experience. Working solely on one topic, rather than a variety of term papers throughout a semester, tested my ability to focus, dive deep into the research, and avoid the pitfalls of tangential distractions. The abundant amount of information in El Semanario and the lack of secondary sources on a single topic proved challenging to sift through and center on a single subject. Nonetheless, with the help of my advisor and Ph.D. associate Farren Yero, I was able to find and organize enough information for my argument. The overall research and writing process has improved my historiographical awareness, my critical thinking skills, and allowed me to properly organize my findings for both this paper and my future projects. Using my work from this summer, I hope to continue researching the topic as an honors thesis.

--Sigi