Nature’s Currency: The Atlantic Mahogany Trade and the Commodification of Nature in the Eighteenth Century
Author(s)
Anderson, Jennifer L.
Abstract
Explores the rapidly diminishing 18th-century West Indian mahogany trade, including the efforts of English colonizers, Spaniards, indigenous peoples, and African slaves to control it, that established mahogany as a valuable commodity in England’s developing imperial Atlantic mercantilist system. Although mahogany was initially used for general purposes, it became a luxury item used for crafting fine furniture in Philadelphia, New England, and elsewhere beginning in the 1720’s, due to its appearance, strength, versatility, and workability. Natural products such as mahogany were viewed as a form of capital under mercantilism and had “value only when brought into the emerging capitalist marketplace.” The extraction and commodification of mahogany meant deforestation of its Caribbean habitat and related environmental problems by the 19th century.
