How a tiny Caribbean island made American independence possible

historyanalysisThe Conversation1776 · St. Eustatius, Caribbean

How a tiny Caribbean island made American independence possible

the gist

In November 1776, the American brigantine Andrew Doria sailed into Oranje Bay on St. Eustatius, a small Dutch island, carrying the Continental Colors and a copy of the Declaration of Independence. The ship fired a salute, and Fort Oranje returned it, which is now called the First Salute and is widely regarded as the first formal recognition of the new United States by a foreign power. St. Eustatius was a free port, so goods moved through it with few taxes or restrictions, and it became a major commercial hub in the Atlantic economy. Merchants there supplied arms, gunpowder, cloth and food that kept the American war effort going. The island's prosperity rested heavily on the slave trade and plantation labour, and the Dutch free port drew sharp criticism from Britain for helping the rebellion.

so what

The island shows that the Revolution depended on trade, credit and supplies as much as on battles. A small port's trading networks helped sustain a rebellion against an empire.

fun fact

Adam Smith discussed St. Eustatius in The Wealth of Nations, using its free trade as an example of commercial energy, though he never visited it.

more on this

background

Sint Eustatius, known locally as Statia, is an island in the Caribbean. It is a special municipality (officially "public body") of the Netherlands.

The island is in the northern Leeward Islands, southeast of the Virgin Islands. Sint Eustatius is immediately to the northwest of Saint Kitts and southeast of Saba. The regional capital is Oranjestad. The island has an area of 21 square kilometres (8.1 sq mi). Travelers to the island by air arrive through F. D. Roosevelt Airport.

Formerly part of the Netherlands Antilles, Sint Eustatius became a public body of the Netherlands in 2010. It is part of the Dutch Caribbean, which consists of Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint Maarten. Together with Bonaire and Saba, it forms the BES Islands, also referred to as the Caribbean Netherlands.

From Wikipedia: Sint Eustatius (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗

see

Walter Hellebrand, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Alexander de Lavaux, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Carib93, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

key facts

Country: Netherlands
Located in: Netherlands
Capital: Oranjestad
Population: 3,293
Area: 21 km²

Facts: Wikidata (CC0)

Illustrative photo · NASA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

source: The Conversation ↗

historyThe Public Domain Review1909 · United States

D. W. Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909)

the gist

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.

how it works

To corner a market, a trader buys up most of the available supply and the futures contracts that promise more. Anyone who has to deliver the commodity must then buy from the cornerer at whatever price is demanded. The trader profits until the stock is released or the scheme collapses.

so what

A century on, it still shows how markets can be rigged by someone who controls supply, and how the people at either end, farmers and eaters, pay for it. It also helped establish editing as a way to argue a point, not just tell a story.

the bigger pattern

Corners have recurred whenever supply could be locked up, from the Hunt brothers' attempt on silver in 1979 to 1980 to the 'Black Friday' gold panic of 1869. Many such schemes end by collapsing, and the response is often new rules on speculation.

fun fact

In the film the Wheat King dies by falling into a grain elevator and being buried in the wheat he hoarded, an ending borrowed from Norris's novel The Octopus.

Usman Khawaja refuses to answer Sandpapergate question about Pat Cummins | 7.30

from ABC News In-depth

One of the darkest days in Australia's sporting history has been dragged back into the spotlight.

A new autobiography by former Test cricketer Usman Khawaja has made explosive revelations about the Australian Test team's 2018 ball-tampering saga in South Africa.

7.30 host Sarah Ferguson speaks to Usman Khawaja.

7.30 is the ABC's flagship current affairs program, delivering original journalism, exclusive investigations, in-depth analysis and interviews on the major issues affecting Australia and the world.

With on-the-ground reporting from ABC journalists across every state and territory and around the world, 7.30 has the latest on politics, policy, the economy, cost of living, housing, health, climate and energy, national security and global affairs.

Note: In most cases, our captions are auto-generated.

on YouTube: ABC News In-depth ↗