Cacao

1851 · ref. BK0071 — Guayaquil Ecuador 1851. Folded manuscript letter in Spanish with an earlier communication dated June 13 copied and headed "Duplicado" followed by a second communication dated July 18 on the same folded sheet. Integral address panel to "Sr. Dn. Fran.co S. Alvarez / San Francisco / Alta California" with oval "FORWARDED BY / ZACHRISSON NELSON & CO. / PANAMA" handstamp and large "20" due marking. 2 pp. 8 ¼ x 10 ¼ inches. Old folds with several small losses and separations along folds and margins only minimally affecting the text. A detailed commercial letter from the Guayaquil mercantile house V. Gómez & Ca. to Francisco Salvador Ãlvarez Pérez the prominent Valparaíso merchant then engaged in business in San Francisco during the opening years of the California Gold Rush. Ãlvarez belonged to one of Valparaíso's established commercial families and maintained extensive Pacific trading interests. He would shortly afterward serve as Chilean consul in San Francisco. In the letters Gómez & Co. supply Ãlvarez with current market information from Ecuador. They also apparently executed purchases on behalf of his Valparaíso interests. The first communication dated June 13 and recopied here as a duplicate reports extensively on the Guayaquil commodity market. Gómez & Co. describe the year's cacao crop as exceptionally poor discuss newly arrived cacao from Machala and the prices being asked for it and report purchases and quantities associated with Ãlvarez's business. They also give information on barley Jipijapa Panama hats exchange rates and other current prices. The July 18 continuation connects those commodity markets directly to the political crisis then unfolding between Ecuador and New Granada. Explaining why barley cannot be purchased below a previously quoted price Gómez & Ca. cite the fact that threats from New Granada had compelled the Ecuadorian government to form an army thereby taking many workers away from industry "la actitud amenazante que ha tomado la Nueva Granada y que ha obligado a este Gobierno a ordenar la formación de un Ejército que quite muchos brazos a la industria". The letter is dated July 18 1851 amid the military and political crisis of that summer and just one day after the Guayaquil garrison proclaimed José María Urbina Supreme Chief. The integral address leaf preserves the letter's route northward through Panama in the hands of Zachrisson Nelson & Co. one of the forwarding firms handling correspondence in the early California traffic. An interesting document of the commercial infrastructure connecting South America with California in 1851 with identifiable firms and recipients content regarding Gold Rush-era Pacific trade contemporary commentary on Ecuadorian mobilization and Panama forwarding marks. . unknown