Mercantile Credit and Financing in Venezuela, 1830–1870

• Published in: Journal of Latin American Studies
• Main Author: Berglund, Susan
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1985
• Subjects: Sociology and Political Science; Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous); Geography, Planning and Development; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022216x00007938; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022216X00007938

The activities of the mercantile houses operating in the import–export trade are of primary importance in tracing and analyzing the nature of economic growth in nineteenth-century Latin America. As a necessary corollary to their trade activities, many houses were also involved in shipping and served as conduits for financial transactions of all types, collecting, receiving and remitting funds as well as making local investments, advances and loans. Mercantile houses thus served as the commercial– financial bridgehead between the new republics and the North Atlantic world. Naturally, not all mercantile houses participated in these activities to the same degree, and a distinction should be noted between agents for houses and partners.