The Drake Brothers & Co. Of Havana To Magoun & Clap Of Bath, Maine - : THE BRITISH OWNERS OF ONE OF THE LARGEST SLAVE-LABOR PLANTATIONS IN CUBA PEDDLE SUGAR AND COFFEE IN NEW ENGLAND

A printed circular from the Drake Brothers in Havana announces their current prices for sugar, molasses, coffee, and other products to a prominent wholesale and shipping firm in Maine

Havana, Cuba. The Drake Brothers & Co. 2 pigs, bi-fold printed circular; 8.25" x 11". Datelined "Havana 8 May 1851" and signed in print by the Drake Brothers. Addressed to a merchant in Bath, Maine, and bears two postal handstamps, a straight-line "PRINTED CIRCULAR." In black and a large bold "6" in red. (In 1847, the U.S. established a rate of three cents for loose printed matter originating in the West Indies and given to the purser or mail agent aboard a contract steamship. If addressed beyond the U.S. port of arrival, the "printed matter" delivery rate of three cents was added, resulting in a total cost of six cents to mail this circular.)

Very good with original folds, light edgewear, and light foxing. Nothing similar in the trade, auction or listed with Rare Book Hub and Worthpoint. A box of Drake & Co. correspondence is located at the Rothschild Archive in London, and OCLC shows collections of Magoun & Clapper papers are held at two institutions.

The circular provides a long list of the then current prices for various grades of Cuban sugar, molasses, and coffee, as well as a few other spices and products.

James Drake was a shrewd English merchant who settled in Cuba and married into an aristocratic Cuban family. He and his sons, led by Charles, owned a number of prominent Cuban merchant houses and one of the island's major plantations that alone was worked by over 400 slaves. The Drakes were an important cog in Moses Taylor Pyne's Triangle Trade slaving network that created the fortune used to transform Princeton from a small and rather unimportant New Jersey college into the major university it is today.

The family became quite wealthy exporting sugar and coffee from their stable of warehouses while also serving as the island's largest importer of goods and luxuries which they sold to plantation owners. Additionally, the Drakes made large profits financing slave ships and providing 'banking' credit to the planting elite to fund the purchase of land, plants, equipment, and slaves.

David C. Magoun was a prominent merchant in Bath, Maine who joined with a wholesale grocer, Charles Clapp, in the early 1840s to establish an important New England shipping company. Magoun was elected to serve as Bath's first mayor in 1848.
(For more information, see Glass's "Moses Taylor Pyne and the Sugar Plantations of America at the Princeton & Slavery Project online, "Drake, C. & Co." at the Rothschild Archive London, and Flassler's "Enforcing Slavery Era Disclosure Ordinance (2-92-585) against UBS . . .. online at Zurich University.)

A scarce ephemeral testament to the mercantile dominance of Great Britain and New England in the slave trade during the height of the abolitionist movement made even more desirable by an unlisted "printed circular" handstamp and uncommon stand-alone red "6" rate stamp applied in Boston. (See ASCC, vol 1, p168.)