Merchants and Scholars

Essays in the History of Exploration and Trade

John Parker, editor

Merchants and Scholars was first published in 1965. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

This volume of essays, collected in memory of James Ford Bell, reflects in some measure the broad scope and rich diversity of the James Ford Bell Collection of the University of Minnesota Library. All ten of the essays are based on or related to materials in the Bell collection.

Founded by the late Mr. Bell, who was a prominent figure in the modern economic history of Minnesota, the collection had its origins in his interest in the commercial penetration of North America. As the collection developed, it became apparent that it would not be possible to study the merchants and explorers who came to North America apart from their contemporaries who probed South America, Africa, and Asia. The scope of the collection thus was expanded until it became worldwide, including the works of philosophers, geographers, navigators, merchants, and others who provided European readers with the knowledge they needed to enlarge their sphere of commerce.

In an introduction, John Parker, former curator of the collection, explains the significance of the concept of the Bell collection to an understanding of history. He makes it clear that we cannot understand the reality of a world laced together by the bonds of commerce until we have learned how these bonds developed.

The essays, which cover a wide range of subjects, show the interdependence of men of adventure and their scholarly contemporaries. Essays by Thomas Goldstein and Elisabeth Hirsch show that the scientists and humanists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were deeply concerned with geographic thought and new discoveries. David Quinn and Ward Barrett discuss economic undertakings by merchants of the Old World in the New, while Burton Stein and Paul Bamford deal with historic problems of economy in Asia and the Mediterranean, respectively. John Webb, Frank Gillis, and Ernst Abbe relate economic enterprise and exploration to the development of the cartography of Russia and Hudson Bay. Helen Wallis and O.H.K. Spate concern themselves with English and French interests in the southern oceans. In its publication of these studies the Bell collection continues the tradition of cooperation between the merchant and the scholar.

John Parker was curator of the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of Van Meteren’s Virginia, 1607-1612 (Minnesota, 1961).

INTRODUCTION page 1
by JOHN PARKER, Curator, James Ford Bell Collection, Walter Library, University
of Minnesota
GEOGRAPHY IN FIFTEENTH-CENTURY FLORENCE page 9
by THOMAS GOLDSTEIN, Assistant Professor of History, City College of New York
THE DISCOVERIES AND THE HUMANISTS page 33
by ELISABETH FEIST HiRSCH, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Modern
Language, Trenton State College
COROMANDEL TRADE IN MEDIEVAL INDIA page 47
by BURTON STEIN, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Min-
nesota
THE VAN DEUTECUM MAP OF RUSSIA
AND TARTARY page 63
by JOHN w. WEBB, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University of
Minnesota
HENRY HUDSON AND THE EARLY EXPLORATION AND
MAPPING OF HUDSON BAY, 1610 TO 1631 page 87
by ERNST c. ABBE, Chairman, Department of Botany, University of Minnesota;
and FRANK J. GILLIS, former Assistant Curator, James Ford Bell Collection, Uni-
versity of Minnesota, now Associate Director of the Archives of Traditional Music,
Folklore Institute, Indiana University
ENGLAND AND THE ST. LAWRENCE, 1577 TO 1602 page 117
6yDAViDB.QUiNN, Professor of Modern History, University of Liverpool
CARIBBEAN SUGAR-PRODUCTION STANDARDS IN THE
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES page 145
by WARD BARRETT, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University of
Minnesota
SLAVES FOR THE GALLEYS OF FRANCE, 1665 TO 1700 page 171
by PAUL w. BAMFORD, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of
Minnesota
ENGLISH ENTERPRISE IN THE REGION OF THE STRAIT
OF MAGELLAN page 193
fry H E L E N w A L L i s, Assistant Keeper in the Map Room, British Museum, London
DE LOZIER BOUVET AND MERCANTILIST EXPANSION
IN THE PACIFIC IN 1740 page 221
by o. H. K. SPATE, Professor, the Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian
National University, Canberra
INDEX page 239